Of A Pilot
by IA Seldon
Summary: The story of a pilot, his life, his pain, his madness. The newest chapter is Chapter 8, Wars of a Pilot. C&C appreciated.
1. Father of a Pilot Indefinitly on Hold

Father Of A Pilot 

The Seldon Planner Presents:

  


An ETHERWORLDS Production.

  


"Father Of A Pilot"

  


Part One.

  


~~~

  
"She's dead."   
In the background the electronic beeping faded, the lights were turned off. And the sheet was pulled over the limp form that lay peacefully on the bed of white. Slowly the varied doctors and nurses left the room, passing by the two figures that remained in the room before leaving them to their thoughts and emotions. The first pulled off her glasses and rubbed her nose tiredly. She had been up for several days trying to find a cure, but to no avail.   
The other, simply frowned at the covered body. Sneering at its frail form and thin torso as it was covered by the bed sheet.   
"I couldn't find anything to counteract the rapid decomposition brought about by her creating an AT Field. It wasn't within my knowledge."   
"Enough, Akagi...leave."   
The blonde hesitated as she considered her options. One was she disobey him and possibly get thrown back into jail while the other was to leave while she could and take her chance to escape from this hell. She bowed and left, letting the door click shut.   
"I don't care anymore. I just don't give a damn-" Ritsuko thought as she rounded a corner, nearly running headlong into Shinji. "Oh-"  
"..."  
The boy looked horrible. His face was drawn in and tight against his face from lack of food. His eyes were ringed with sleeplessness and reddened from tears. Much like she felt.   
"Shinji? What...what are you doing here?"   
"They're running some tests on Asuka and I just found out that...that Re-Rei's..." he sobbed softly and stopped, clutching his hand to his mouth as he tried to regain control. The doctor looked sympathetically at him before taking his shoulder and turning him away from the door.   
"Wh-where are you taking me? I want to see Rei!" he protested and moved out of her grip.   
"Do you 'want' to be in the same room as your father?" sarcasm laced her words like a poison. And they had their desired effect as Shinji's face cringed away and turned bitter, "You need food, so lets go get some."   
His face turned away and his eyes stared at the far wall for a moment before he faced back and nodded.   
"Yeah, lets..."   
Slowly the pair walked away from the medical ward.   
Leaving the smell of clean death and sterilized decay behind.   


***

  
Gendo Ikari remained staring at her limp form. He was morbidly fascinated with it. As he finally realized in his second hour of vigil. It was as though he expected her to wake at any moment. Wake and help him finalize his plans for Third Impact.   
Impossible, now.   
"Damn you Akagi...damn you and your meddling!" Gendo angrily lashed out at the nearby table, his fist slamming into its prefabricated surface with a vicious crack.   
His face cringed a bit as he felt his knuckles slice open.   
His glove reddened.   
"Damn you...damn Seele...damn Keel...damn it all..." he slumped forward against the table, his hands gripping the edges as he let himself vent.   
"Fifteen years...all for nothing," Gendo felt his knuckles go white from his grip. "I lost my wife, lost any chance of having a family with my son! And now...I lost my last chance to make that reality...I've lost R-Rei."   
Gendo felt himself go slack, felt himself loosen his grip on the table as he felt reality slide away from him. He who held it firmly in check for so long finally felt the first hints of loneliness.   
"Yui. Yui I have failed once more...I can't come back with you. I will suffer my own hell for my sins," his head lifted up and stared at the bed again. "I don't even know my son, I'm truly a monster."   


***

  
The pair sat quietly in the abandoned NERV cafeteria. The only personnel active at this hour were the unfortunate few pulling the snack bar duty that consisted of fixing quick sandwiches or light soups and coffee that was essential at keeping the rest of NERV awake in the long cold hours of the night.   
Ritsuko absently sipped that famed black liquid as she studied the boy before her. She examined him much as she would study a test animal...it made him feel lonely, distant.   
'Poor boy has to endure so much for so little return...its actually a shame,' she thought.   
"Why?"   
Ritsuko watched him a few more moments. Noting that his head moved in time with his breaths. Raising. Lowering. Raising again. She let the time pass as she studied this, finding fascination in such a small movement.   
Shinji felt his patience slipping much like the time that passed. So he asked again.   
"Why?"   
Ritsuko set down her cup and reached out for his chin. Shinji nearly threw himself away from that hand, but held his body in check and allowed his chin to be raised. His eyes fell across the doctors impassive yet caring eyes.   
"Now that I can see you, I will explain," Ritsuko glanced at the clock and wondered how long she had before Ikari came to his senses and ordered her death.   
"The seventeenth angel..." she paused as his eyes deepened with sadness and memory. "Do you remember the third AT Field?"   
The pause was laden with tension and apprehension as Shinji rapidly made connections in his delicate stream of thought.   
"Yes," his voice sounded flat, dead. Monotone. "Rei...it was her wasn't it?"   
"She created it yes...and suffered because of what it did."   
"H-how?"   
"At the Sea of Guf...you remember what I told you and Misato there don't you?" Ritsuko leaned forward and glanced to the door.   
"Yes...about her being part of my mother and part of an angel."   


***

  
He had stopped his crying.   
It was to emotionally draining for him to show his feelings these days. Too painful, too weak. He couldn't even remember when he started crying, just that in an instant water impregnated with salt was rolling down into the corners of his mouth. Intermingling with the brown hairs of his beard.   
Gendo Ikari hated having emotions. It made him weak, made him feel inferior to those above him. Yet it was the only thing that he kept for Yui's sake. The only part of himself that he did not attempt to refine and hone as he wanted.   
For Yui.   
But now she was gone. Gone forever.   
And he was alone, again.   
'I will go to hell for this...' Wood protested as white enshrouded fingertips tightened their grip. 'But I will not go alone! I will take those manipulating Bastards with me! Seele...and Keel...all will fall with me...'  
Madness crept into his shaded eyes, and a tight, almost sickly grin spread across his features as he contemplated his next move. The move that would bring Seele and all of its plans for a "higher" humanity crashing around their feet. Oh, how he had waited for this moment...how he had planned and positioned in secret that which would be needed. And now it was time, time to move that last piece into checkmate.   
His last move of the game.   
'...I have many sins...but allowing Seele to complete their scenario, it is far worse than anything I could have done to this world...or to Shinji.' Gendo Ikari narrowed his eyes and stared once more at the still, white form nearby. "Goodbye...Rei."   
A moment passed and he was gone, the door behind him closing with a tangible-  
_Snick_  


***

Professor, Project Leader, Sub-Commander...old man. Kouzo Fuyutski was all of these things, and perhaps a bit more, in his own mind. Though in these final days it seemed to matter little to him anymore.   
The ice rattled in the glass.   
Kouzo's withered hand wrapped around the clear solid with a gentleness tendering on extreme care. Delicately he lifted the drink to his mouth and poured its rich, fiery brown contents down his aged throat. The burning sensation was still there, though not as bad as it had been with his first drink. Age and repetition seems to have taken care of that.   
Too bad bourbon couldn't solve all of Kouzo's problems tonight. The drink wasn't that powerful...not now at least.   
His tired eyes wandered over his rich and antique room, lingering on trophies of importance or meaning. Remembering days long past. Days with his students. Days before the hell and nightmares began. Days before he knew anything about Evangelion, Seele, or the Dead Sea Scrolls.   
Days when he knew Yui Ikari, back as a college student.   
'So much innocence...yet a harbinger of so much death and destruction, that girl was...' he thought, resting the cool drink against his throbbing head. Letting it sooth away his tensions and worries for the night as the liquid fire raged into his stomach.   
Another drink went the way of the first.   
'And now that Rei has no more replacements...he will be forced to act soon or not at all,' he stood and moved across the dim room to where the drinks were stocked, pouring himself another full glass.   
Another drink.   
Kouzo sighed as he felt the alcohol begin to dull his mind, washing away several emerging memories in a blaze of roiling fire. But it didn't stop his thoughts. He reveled in the small bits of information he had managed to glean from the Magi systems about Ikari's recent activities...troops unit allocations, weapons authorizations, vehicle checks, tank simulations. And on top of it all, several dozen covert units from all across the world being deployed to eight locations around the world. What did it all mean? Why was he doing it?   
"What do you have ready now Ikari? What little trick do you have stored away to change this into your favor?"   
His wall did not answer. It was only a wall after all, though many walls can be said to have heard some of the most important secrets of all human history. Certainly the walls, floor, and ceiling of Gendo Ikari's office heard several of those.   
But the home of Kouzo Fuyutski wasn't a famous wall, as walls are reckoned. It was just a wall, paneled in wood and lined with books and pictures. The phone rang.   
"Hello?" Kouzo paused for several moments as he digested the information he was receiving. "I understand."   
The phone hit the receiver and cut the connection. "So you have begun...God save us all now." Kouzo walked out a few minutes later, rushing the zipper on his uniform and signaling to the chaufer to come around.   
The bourbon glass let loose a tinkling as the ice melted and fell. Antarctica to an ocean of death. Ice to bourbon. Ends...and beginnings.   


***

  
The room was cold.   
Colder than most human beings would have found comfortable, but then again: only one human being actually used this room. And he never gave a damn about anyone or anything besides the plan.   
His plan.   
"What is causing this new delay?" Keel asked from behind his monolithic block with the stenciled red Seele 01.   
"Yes," called number five. "We should have been ready to finalize the plan nearly three days ago, immediately after the last Angel was eliminated."   
Several of the monoliths agreed, but a few remained silent...and one was entirely absent from the meeting. Keel did not like how this was boding for his plans, his scenarios. Everything had to be done quickly, or Ikari would put into place measures that would prevent Seele from realizing their goal.   
Seele 8 spoke out, "We've found one source of our difficulties...apparently several JSSDF units are somewhat...loyal to NERV and everything they've done for Japan.I've ordered them to positions in the north and south...far away from Tokyo-3, but we need to act quickly. Their orders only last for a few days...and that's not the only point of resistance I'm facing. Several of the ranking defense council members in Tokyo-2 also feel the same way for NERV."   
"Then we should be rid of them," Seele 2 intoned. "After the completion of the Red Earth Ceremony, a defense council will be...unnecessary."   
"We cannot," Seele 6 cut through the sudden uproar of agreeances. "If we kill them now then people will begin to suspect our true motives...several of our recent supporters within the JSSDF hierarchy may change back to their previous status."   
Keel felt his lips stretch into a grim line as he pondered this new information. He listened distractedly to the continuing arguments flying around the room, well...rooms should one get technical. For each member on the council each had a room similar to this one on their own properties.   
Seele 12 appeared and the room fell silent.   
Keel frowned, "You're late."   
"I have important news about the pilots current status," boomed out twelve's mechanical voice. "Rei Ayanami is dead."   
The clamor that had dissipated earlier returned twofold, each member suddenly filled with questions and each demanding that his own question be answered first.   
Keel was tired of this all, and let his hand shift quickly to a row of recessed buttons on his black steel desk. His old and worn fingers, those that weren't totally machine, easily found the groove and gently depressed the hair trigger switch.   
A loud squeal echoed through the room, causing many on the Seele council to grasp their ears in shock, surprise, or pain. Keel removed his finger and clasped his hands together. "Twelve, how old is this information?"   
"Half hour, forty-five minutes...no more," came the reply.   
"The source is reliable?"   
"As all of my sources are."   
"Eight, get your men assembled and ready to depart within the hour, but have enough supplies to last a few weeks should this become a siege. You'll start the assault on Tokyo-3 within twelve hours," Keel ordered quickly, not wanting to loose this golden opportunity. If Ikari couldn't put his plan into operation he would be very frustrated and absent-minded. They needed to take a chance, and soon.   
Eight disappeared.   
"Six, begin moving the Mass Production Series to our flight base in Russia. Have them ready to go tommorrow."   
Six vanished.   
"Two, Three, Four, and Seven: prepare your stations for the Magi takeover, co-ordinate yourselves with the JSSDF attack and throw them off balance. Splice into the other two systems needed and set up your remote accesses."   
The four faded away.   
"Ten, start your anti-NERV propaganda. Make it fast and snappy."   
"As ordered One," Ten respectfully said before he went the way of the others.   
"Twelve and Eleven, try to gain more information about the other pilots and where they might be in a given hour. If the pilot of that blasphemous creation gets out before we are prepared..."   
"Understood," The two monoliths intoned together before departing.   
"And us?" asked Five and Nine.   
"Enjoy the world while you can."   
They left as well, leaving Keel alone in his cold room. Good thing that his mechanical body couldn't feel it anymore. He stood, then walked for the exit.   
It was time for tea.   


***

  
Kensuke crouched in the woods, not far from the city limits of Tokyo-3, and gazed out at the massive collection of lakes. It was a breathtaking sight, seeing the moon reflect off of their silvery surfaces.   
'I wish I had my camera...' he thought, wistfully looking up at the bright stars and the full moon. Such a bright, white moon. "I wish Toji and Shinji were here."   
A loud rumble echoed from off in the distance. Kensuke snapped his head down.   
"Oh...my...God."   


***

  
Sensei Taiha Miykuzua was an old man. He felt age creep farther and farther into the marrow of his bones every passing day. The feeling was still a strange one to him, especially since most of his lower body was mechanical parts covered with a very expensive synthetic polymer flesh. A misfortune he suffered from the Second Impact...but that shedding of blood and loss of his lower body helped him more than anyone could know. For in his hospital ward he ran into an old acquaintance, another teacher. Sensei Kei Hyashimaru, a friend from his earlier teaching days who, before the impact, had been a teacher for the Tokyo University. An old friend, and a good friend...who was under the employ for Seele.   
The two had recovered together, both with similar injuries and recovery periods. They had reminisced, chatted, discussed, debated, argued...and plotted together. It didn't take long before Kei decided to tell Taiha about the secretive Seele council. It took an even less amount of time before one sunglasses wearing Keel paid Taiha a visit.   
And here he was, after fifteen years of pain and debilitation, he was in the ruined outskirts of Tokyo-3. A teacher and watcher of the vaunted Evangelion pilots. A collaborator with the principal, his old friend Kei, and a spy for Seele.   
A smile stole across his withered face as he contemplated who, and what, he was. 'A man preparing for the end of the world, preparing for the next evolution.' Plotting and planning, its all he seemed to do these days.   
Someone knocked on his door.   
Taiha glanced at the wall clock and then groaned as he stood. "What do you want? It's nearly midnight for pete's sake!" He strode to the door and threw back the bolt. The phone rang in the distance. "Hold on, hold on! I'll ge-"  
The door suddenly tore itself to shreds, several dozen neat holes appeared all throughout the thin wood as the two NERV Section-2 assault teams peppered the small area with 9mm bullets. Blood flowed like water from Taiha's mouth and nose, his body leaked like a butchered garden hose.   
The last thing the old teacher heard was the sound of shattering glass, undercut by the dull thud of lead puncturing old, thick books. The last thing he saw was his dark blood spreading over the hardwood floor as he fell.   
The night cold swept around him.   


***

  
Kensuke watched with abject horror as the two NERV teams sprayed the door of his teachers house with their automatics. He felt his knee's go weak and dimly registered the slick feel of grass brushing against his hands.   
"My God, my God, my God-" Kensuke stopped suddenly as a new order came echoing across the distance.   
"Pull back. AT-1, place two HE in the walls and then one incendiary in the middle."   
The teams were moving already, piling into their NERV Humvee's as if they were schoolchildren preparing to leave on a class field trip. There was a dull rumble of a diesel engine, from around the corner a small, light assault tank rolled into view. Thick and dark black smoke pouring out of its exhaust pipe as the treads laboriously pulled their burden forward. Then it ground to a halt, no more than three meters distant from the torn and tattered door.   
Kensuke could see a dark, shiny patch seep out from under its frame.   
"FIRE!"   
The boy covered his ears quickly, but the concussion still pierced his protective hands. His mind shook from the impact, his body quivered from the explosion. A wall collapsed, taking part of the roof with it. A whirring of gears, the turret rotated.   
"FIRE!"   
Another shot, another wall, another hum of electric power as the turret centered.   
"Incendiary...FIRE!"   
The man behind the turret felt calm and cool as he went about his duty. Whomever this was, they had brought it upon themselves. He still felt that way as the house began to burn. As the smell of cooked flesh drifted into his nose.   
Another order and they were away, the fire department would take care of the rest. They had more houses to visit tonight anyway.   
Kensuke threw up.   


***

  
Principal Kei Hyashimaru frowned at his wall as the phone rang again. "Come on, Taiha...come on damn you!" The line went dead. "What tha-"  
A distant rumble cut through his soft exclamation, Kei felt his eyes go wide. "Oh, God...He wouldn't!" Kei shouted as he slammed his hand on the receiver, desperately trying to clear his phone line for a dial tone again.   
A dial tone came up again, and just as suddenly went completely dead. 'The lines have been cut...Ikari knows who I am!'  
"Tsoroko!" Kei shouted, calling for the captain of his house guards.   
He wasn't unprepared for such a possibility after all; being a member of Seele, one always considered all the scenarios before committing himself to action. And they planned for every single possibility too.   
"Yessir," Tsoroko announced himself with clipped and precise tones. He was dressed in a black jumpsuit, a holstered Glock by his right hip and a navy blue beret on his head that topped off the uniform. Shined boots gleamed brightly in the soft light of the room. Several men similarly dressed and armed with heavier weaponry were assembled behind him in a neat rectangular formation.   
"Prepare for an assault on the compound," Kei harshly commanded as he strode into the foyer with the men. "Expect light assault tanks, break out anything you deem necessary to hold them off. I'm going to contact my superior."   
Tsoroko took a measured look at the master of the house and saw desperation. Still, he was a military man who followed his orders; and he was Japanese, so he would follow them even if it meant his death. To do otherwise would be a disgrace to his honor.   
"Yessir," Tsoroko answered with a crisp salute. Then turned and issued orders rapidly and with unerring precision.   
'They will do well,' Kei thought feverishly as he turned away, heading for the holoroom. 'They've trained for this...they will do well enough until support arrives.' Kei reached the double European doors that lead to the secured Seele Council room. A quick scan of his hand and eyes confirmed his identity and he was through.   
Tsoroko watched the doors swing shut again.   
"We've lost."   


***

  
Kouzo marched in time with the squad of suited agents. They strode confidently past startled personnel and wary technicians all the same. Never wavering or spreading apart. Always together.   
'Damn you Ikari, why do you send me to do this kind of job? Wasn't it enough to torture the poor girl with that solitude...only to release her and demand her services once again!?'  
The group of six stopped before the stainless steel elevator doors. The indicator above them started to click as Kouzo punched in a override passcode. The elevator descended rapidly.   
'Only now to do this to her...and to have me execute it.'  
"Sir," one of the agents dared to mention. "Are you alright?"   
Kouzo fixed the man with a gaze that rivaled the Second Impact for polar ice melting abilities. The agent was too well trained to shiver, but he wilted visibly under that stare. "I'm perfectly fine, agent. Now, be silent...all of you."   
The wait was in silence from then on. The elevator arrived, the doors opened to reveal a startled Maya Ibuki and several other technicians and staff.   
"S-Sir?" Maya ventured forth looking scared and cornered within the confines of the elevator. Several of the others looked downright ready to piss their pants at the sight they were witnessing. Kouzo suddenly realized what Gendo felt.   
"Out."   
They scrambled, and soon Kouzo and the five others entered. Kouzo re-entered his override and depressed a button until it became a bright yellow-white color. The doors closed, the elevator descended again. The indicator began clicking again.   
"Get ready," Kouzo mentioned off-hand.   
The agents drew their weapons and chambered a round. Five sliding clicks echoed in the metal box.   


***

  
"Are the units in position?" Gendo listened intently for the reply, it was difficult to hear the man on the other end. Static interference broke across the conversation every once in a while and made it impossible to discern what the other was saying. Gendo nodded as confirmation was acknowledged, "Good. I want you to pass the word along, strike in twenty minutes...well done, commander."   
He hung up the phone and turned to face the impressive landscape that was the Geofront. He never had really taken the time to look out at this wonderful place, with its deep shadows and hues of midnight blue clinging in convoluted places. He never had realized how simple a pleasure awaited him every day should he have turned around.   
His eyes narrowed, 'It's too late for that now any ways...best get going Ikari, or you'll miss the grand assault.' He turned and hurried out of the office, his steps echoing nicely throughout the massive room as he departed.   
The room seemed not to care.   


***

  
"Who was that?"   
"The Boss, he was confirming the positions of our assault units."   
Commander Ivan Broack was a heavyset man of middling years. He wore his uniform like it was his skin, the younger officers joked about how he only took it off to change his skivvies and bang the missus. Course, they never told that to him, but he managed to hear it none the less. He twirled his curly blonde hair about the index finger on the right hand and walked up to the sergeant who asked the question.   
"We've been ordered to go in a few minutes...are the tanks coming into position?"   
"Two mikes before they're set sir," the sergeant replied after consulting the reports his terminal were receiving.   
"Good," Broack slammed his hand forcefully against the terminal letting out a loud bang as he did so. "Now we can finally get rid of those annoying bastards."   
"Sir, who exactly are we attacking?"   
"Sergeant, we are not 'attacking' anyone...we're just cleaning house a bit. Understand?" Broack let his voice edge on a bit, trying to let the sergeant know not to push for too many answers. After all, some things only the brass should know.   
"Yessir, sorry sir."   
Broack nodded and pointed to a digital assault unit on the sergeant's monitor.   
"Move them in two more meters."   


***

  
"Sorry Shinji, those calls took a bit longer than I expected."   
"Its okay Dr. Aka-...I mean, Ritsuko," Shinji blushed a bit, and Ritsuko smiled. Happy that the boy was finally getting past the troubles he had the misfortune of going through right now.   
"Well," she said, slipping into a more somber tone, "Where were we?"   
"Rei was destabilizing-"  
"Ah, yes...her body isn't like others y'know. Hers was only held together by that AT Field...and when she released it with such force and power, well...her form just couldn't hold together much longer. She started to rapidly decay, much like cancer. Except in reverse."   
"So...you mean that she started to disintegrate?"   
Ritsuko let the question hang for a moment, "Yes, Shinji...she started to disintegrate."   
"Bu-but, what about the clones in that, that....that room?" Shinji cried aloud.   
"Anti-AT Field technology," Ritsuko sipped her coffee, now cold, and winced at its horribly stale taste.   
"A-ANTI?!"   
"Sshhhh! Keep it down for pete's sake!" Ritsuko shifted in the synthetic seat and leaned forward. "Yes, anti. I know what you're thinking Shinji. But it wouldn't have worked, the Angels are simply too large of a creature to use it against. Plus, your...Father...wouldn't have allowed it. It would have taken away too much of his funding," Ritsuko ended her revelation of secrets with a bitter, if amused, tone; one eyebrow arched and the other twitching in anger.   
"What? I don't understand," Shinji's face could have told her that much.   
"I don't expect you to...so young, and so innocent," Ritsuko let a small peal of laughter loose at Shinji's bewildered look. "You would do well to be as such for many more years. But, remember this...Repairing the Evangelions wasn't something that cost us a lot of money. Hell, just the damages to the city cost more than the regeneration of the Evangelions! Most of the funding that NERV gets is used to keep track of certain people around the world...and the occasional covert side-job involving heavy explosives, but that's not the point."   
"Then...what is?"   
Ritsuko stood and walked over to the newly set coffee machines, "The point is-"  
Ritsuko was interrupted by the cafeteria door breaking off of its hinges and exploding inwards. The scuffed, light brown sole of a well-polished dress shoe slowly lowered itself to the white floor underneath. Sub-Commander Kouzo Fuyutski stepped in quickly and leveled a hard stare in Ritsuko's direction.   
Five suits fanned out behind him, each with his hand inside their coats.   
"Ritsuko Akagi-" Kouzo began in a stiff tone.   
'Here it comes...but now Shinji knows some things. Perhaps he will let some light shine on NERV after I'm gone.'  
"You are charged with Insubordination, Disrespect to a superior officer, Tampering with national defense, Espionage, Treason, and Murder."   
That last part did it, Ritsuko started to laugh in short, disbelieving chortles.   
"Mur-murder? You've got to be kidding me! Those damn dolls were no more alive than this table!"   
Kouzo watched her wild gestures with a weary calm that comes with age, his vision blurred slightly. 'Must be the alcohol,' he decided. Aloud he commented, "The other charges are sufficient enough to warrant your confinement again." Ritsuko stiffened and stood straight. "And the two before the last are enough to warrant your immediate execution."   
Ritsuko's eyes widened, "Ikari wouldn't dare!"   
"So, you are hear by condemned to suffer the execution of the verdict...agents, get this done quickly if you please," Kouzo gestured aimlessly to the frenzied doctor.   
The five men wasted no time.   
Kouzo stood by the door, gazing patiently at the frightened Shinji quickly dart out of the way as the men roughly dragged Ritsuko out of the room. She screamed frantically, clawed at her assailants; it didn't help her in the end. And Kouzo turned his head aside as she was pulled past him, not fast enough though, as she still managed to spit into his face. Kouzo sighed and wiped the dribble away with his handkerchief.   
"...nothing is the same anymore."   
Kouzo nodded at Shinji's quiet proclamation, "Yes, my boy. Your father has seen to that quite well enough."   
"...is she going to be killed?"   
Another nod, and a quiet sigh followed.   
"Shinji, you should go and visit the Second Child again. I think that you should spend some time with her for a while..." Kouzo looked up at the boy, huddled in his chair with his head hanging in such a way as to hide his eyes. "And try to forget what just happened."   
"...what if I can't?"   
"...I don't know...Goodnight, Shinji Ikari," yellow, second stage alert alarms began to flash across the empty expanse of the cafeteria. Kouzo paused on his way out and calmly remarked, "Ah...so it has begun."   
Kouzo left Shinji in the cafeteria.   
Soon, the boy was gone as well.   


***

  
Keel smiled into his warm and steamy cup of tea. He did so enjoy this time of the night, with its playful shadows and its soft illuminescence that gently caressed the land. He had always enjoyed this moment of the night, even after he lost his eyesight to the Second Impact he would still remain up and gaze out over the rolling hills and the sharp mountains of his home.   
'Such a wonderful place.'  
"Sir," his butler softly spoke into Keel's ear. "There is an emergency call coming from Tokyo-3 for you."   
"Bring me the phone if you would please."   
"It's not on the phone sir, it's on your private line..."   
Keel took a moment longer to look at the landscape and then sighed and handed away his tea. "Business as usual."   
It took him two minutes to arrive at the smaller, six man council chambers. He sat down quickly and punched in a rapid seven digit code on his keypanel.   
'Who is calling me now? The council will meet tomorrow anyway...has something gone wrong with the Mass Production series?' Keel felt a trickle of anxiousness run through his metallic spine as he keyed in the last number and activated the holoprojectors.   
Seele 11 appeared.   
"Yes, number eleven. Why are you in my presence, surely you could have wai-"  
"Dammit man! Shut up and listen for a change!"   
Keel was immediately tensed and angry, "How dare you speak to me in such a manner! I'll have you-"  
A loud explosion echoed through the small chamber, and the sharp staccato of automatic weapons fire could be heard from the background.   
"LISTEN! I'm under attack by NERV forces. They've got an entire tank company out at my front gate, trying to blast their way in-" another blast echoed through. "My men are being slaughtered, I need help here."   
"What about Seele 12?" Keel queried, a pit of dread beginning to sprout in his mind.   
"I think they dealt with him first," Seele 11 broke off in a fit of coughing and grunting before he resumed speaking. "His phone line went dead. Mine did too, after I heard an explosion from across the city."   
Keel thought rapidly, and found no answers. "How did they know you were in Seele?" he asked in a voice approaching a low growl.   
"I don't know, I don't know...damn! They just broke through the outer wall-" another explosion, this one caused the holoimage to waver a bit as its signal became unstable.   
"Can you get out of there?" Keel leaned over his keypads and started typing out a missive to the remaining Seele members.   
"No," Seele 11 lamented. "They have all exits blocked. And my secret passage was one of the first to be destroyed...do you suppose Akagi betrayed us?"   
"No, after all...she was Twelve's informant. If she was going to betray us she would have done it a long time ago...there, the others have been alerted."   
"I don't think it wil-" The image wavered again and was temporarily covered in white static before it came back. Seele 11 did not continue speaking though, instead...all Keel could hear was the unnerving sound of footsteps approaching from everywhere, and nowhere.   
The footsteps stopped and the holoimage vanished.   
'Damn it...how the hell did Ikari know who Eleven was? How the hell did he manage to kill of Twelve without our agents warning him!' Keel furiously pounded out the last of his message and pressed the send button. He lifted a finger against his lips and chewed on the skin a bit, then in a fit of pique he slammed the same hand down hard against the smooth, black marble expanse of the table.   
"Damn!"   
A soft scrape of leather against the floor was all the warning Keel had. Instantly he leapt sideways out of his seat, knocking it over in the process, and drew his hidden sidearm from its inner pocket. He had one shot, and only an instant to use it!   
'No time to aim! Pull the TRIGGER!'  
The shot echoed, as all sounds did in the Seele rooms, and died off slowly. Keel watched in horrid fascination as his butler, now bereft half his head, fell to the ground with a wordless groan.   
He stared at the dead body a moment longer, then fled the room. Dropping the spent weapon as he bashed open the thick wooden doors that cordoned him off from the rest of his house. He paused for only a moment before running on, calling his house guards as he ran.   
'No time, need to prepare...no time, my plans...my scenario! Ikari, IKARI!'  
"GUARDS! WHERE ARE MY GUARDS!"   


***

  
Kensuke watched the mop-up start to wind down.   
If one could call it a mop-up...slaughter might have been a better term for what the NERV personnel were doing to the remaining house guards that still lived. The house was on fire too, probably incendiaries or hastily made alcohol cocktails. Also, the smell of gasoline...maybe trail lines heading for canisters. It was still hard for the boy to take in. After all, there was a big difference between playing at war and pretending to die...and actually seeing men die.   
A helluva big difference.   
There was a secondary explosion from within the second story rooms that shot out a gigantic fireball through the slowly melting windows. Glass shattered and tinkled quietly in the night as their glinting shards fell to the blood littered ground. Bodies were rounded up in the center of a garden courtyard, doused with diesel and then lit with a lighter. Then left to be cremated. Dead torches of once-living flesh burned brightly in the eternal summers night.   
Kensuke choked on the smell, then turned and headed for his home. It was a long walk back. And, on the way, he could swear that he heard klaxons off in the distance. His pace quickened.   


***

  
"Anything to say...Ritsuko?" Kouzo asked tiredly, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he stood before the dejected-looking blonde. She remained silent. "Very well...Agents? Proceed."   
The five suits lowered their issue sidearms and sighted the doctor in very easily, it being at such a close range and all. Ritsuko lifted her head and glared fearlessly into their shaded eyes. Fingers audibly tightened on their respective triggers. Kouzo could almost swear that the girl smiled before the muzzles flashed. In fact he would have bet on it. Weapons were lowered and the men walked slowly towards the door. Kouzo grimly stepped away from the pooling blood that collected at the feet of the dead.   
"Do you need us for anything else, sir?" asked one agent.   
"No," Kouzo stared fixatedly ahead, "Leave."   
"Yessir."   
Kouzo waited until the door closed, then he stepped over the five dead bodies and their blood to stand before the tight-lipped and visibly shaken Ritsuko. She was covered in blood, the good doctor, highly tense and nervously awaiting the other shoe to drop. Klaxon alarms began to flare in the background. Overhead, a muted speaker began blaring out unintelligible nonsense. Kouzo didn't try to make sense of it...he already knew what was happening.   
The attack of Seele had begun.   
"Now then...Ritsuko," he paused a moment and inclined his head down to stare at the dead bodies.   
"W-Why?"   
Kouzo looked up at the doctor, "Because I will need you...after this is over."   
"But, my...my charges?"   
"Ikari knew what you were doing. He knew that Seele had given you orders...and so did I." Ritsuko stood silent, letting no sign slip that he was right or wrong. "You are now dead...to everyone and anyone who formerly knew you. Except me, of course," Kouzo started around the wide body of red liquid and headed for the exit, "There is a car waiting for you in the first deck, it will take you to a safehouse within the Geofront."   
Kouzo stopped at the door and looked back at her, letting the light from the hall black out his frame. 'I feel too much like Ikari tonight,' he thought privately, aloud he continued, "You are to remain there until I call for you. Should I require assistance with the Magi, there is a terminal directly linked to the mainframe-"  
"How long have you been planning this?" Ritsuko interjected.   
Kouzo mumbled and hummed for a moment or two and then answered, "About a month, little less." Ritsuko stood still. "Goodnight...Doctor." Kouzo walked out and left the door open.   


***

  
"Sector twelve is in position sir!"   
Broack listened to the report and let a smile steal across his lips. "Excellent, excellent...sergeant!"   
"Sir?" The man in question replied.   
"Issue the order...you may fire, when ready."   
"Yessir," the sergeant inclined his head for a moment and then issued the orders required.   
Broack smiled even wider as he noted the orange flashes in the trees, and clapped his hands together as he heard the muzzles give their thunderous report. More explosions and orange fire leapt up in the far distance.   
"Now order the men forward. Use the LAT's to take out heavy resistance areas."   
"Already ordered sir," the sergeant calmly answered, not letting the explosions faze him.   
"Good man," Broack complemented before he motioned to the command staff. "I'm going to the front. Pack up the camp and prepare to move headquarters into the primary target once its secured."   
The sergeant nodded and began disconnecting wires from the radio. Broack watched a moment longer before he pulled out his pistol and chambered a round. Several others of the staff similarly armed themselves and then filed out, leaving the few remaining specialists and NCO's to clean up.   
The sharp pops of weapons-fire sounded harshly in the night. Another explosion erupted from within the besieged compound.   


***

  
Gendo winced slightly as the high-pitched scream of the VTOL's engines whined over the hustle and bustle of the hasty preparations of the air-assault units. A light drizzle had sprung across the skies of Tokyo-3, and the tarmac was lit with a sick shine from the underbelly lights of the heavy assault craft. Men ran and cursed as minor slips caused them to break the quick flow of motion and work that went on. Pilots activated their windshield wipers and quickly ran down their checklist of outputs and payloads. Several men ran back and forth with shells and ammo cases, rapidly and efficiently re-supplying those units who had recently returned from their previous two missions. Men checked and rechecked every conceivable instrument on their vehicles, preparing for their first fight in months.   
Only, this time, it was not to be against the Angels. Gendo was quickly ushered to a waiting APC by a corporal. "In here sir! That's where you'll find him!" The man shouted over the noise of the slowly preparing aircraft.   
Gendo nodded and stepped up the ramp as it slowly started to raise. Inside, the conditions were crowded and hot, with several dozen men in full battle armor and weaponry standing and waiting for their orders. With a jerk and the throttle of the diesel the heavy vehicle of war sped off, leaving the outskirts of Tokyo-3's protective buildings and leading a convoy of many down towards the road.   
Gendo moved up to the front of the vehicle, to stand by the Major who was in charge. They exchanged brief salutes and then turned to face forward. "We'll be there within a half-hour sir," the man reported as he studied the map coordinates before him.   
"Excellent," Gendo adjusted his stance as the APC lurched into a turn. "How many vehicles are following?"   
"Twenty sir...with three squads of five in each," he consulted his computer readout again before continuing. "As well as a squadron of heavy assault VTOL's that are moving ahead to secure the air."   
A smile stole across the icy commander's lips as he considered the firepower he had amassed against the pitiful target he was going against. It would be almost too easy. And victory would be too sweet.   
"Approaching the main highway sir!" one of the drivers shouted back, twisting his hands hard on the yolk that steered the armored behemoth. Men grunted and groaned in the rear as Gendo leaned over slightly to maintain his balance and stay on his feet. After all, a leader inspires his men by doing things they do not.   
Then his world suddenly spun out and turned over as a flash of heat washed over his body. Pain...and darkness came soon enough.   


***

  
Beep.   
Beep.   
Beep.   
Beep.   
The soft chirp of the life-support systems is something described by many patients and visitors alike as...comforting, reassuring. To Shinji Ikari, it was a dagger in his head. Needles in his eyes. A painful echo in his ears.   
Not because each beep indicated the continued existence of the one that was so closely monitored by the machines...rather, because that each beep simply indicated a homeostasis, never changing, never wavering.   
It seemed hopeless to wish for the person to wake up now. It seemed that she was destined to be a vegetable for the rest of her life.   
"Asuka...Langley...Sohryu..." Even his whisper seemed pathetic now. "...I don't know anything anymore Asuka, nothing is the same," Shinji slumped into the soft chair by her bedside and looked across the bed and out the window. "Rei is dead...I guess if you were awake you would be happy...and I don't know if I would hate you for that or not," his head lowered into his palms and he started crying.   
"I really don't know. I-I just can't discover what I'm thinking or feeling for anyone...anymore. Everything's going to Hell and I feel like, somehow, I started that trip." He wiped away the burning tears and looked back up to the silent girl across from him. "...I feel like...like its my fault for getting you here. OH! WHY THE HELL WAS I EVEN BORN?" Shinji shouted suddenly in the silence of the room.   
"IF ALL I WAS MEANT TO BE IS A PERSON WHO BROUGHT PAIN AND HATE TO THOSE AROUND ME," Shinji paused for a moment to stand and kick his chair away from him, the wood and fiber object impacting the wall hard enough to leave a dent.   
Slowly, he calmed down, "If that's all I was meant to do for the world...then why was I born?"   
Asuka deigned not to reply.   
'Fitting, I suppose,' the troubled boy feverishly imagined to himself. 'After all...why should she want to speak to somebody like me. I'm worthless...trash, refuse. I couldn't save Asuka...and now I couldn't save Rei.'  
Shinji's shoulders slumped in defeat, his knees buckled out from under him and he slid down next to Asuka's bed. Her hand was inches away from his face, gently hanging off the edge of her tousled bed. As if she had been shifting around during her waking sleep.   
Slowly, tenderly, almost fearfully...he reached out and held that hand. He held onto it and gripped it firmly. "Your hand is warm...Asuka," Shinji smiled a bit as he felt new tears run across his cheeks. Alarms started to sound across the hospital ward.   
"Attention, attention," the loudspeaker blared across the small room. "All sectors go to First-Stage Alert! This is no drill! NERV is under attack! Repeat, NERV is under attack by JSSDF forces. All personnel are to arm themselves-"  
Shinji listened to the blaring announcement as it finished and started to repeat. In the distance he could hear explosions echo across the Geofront. "Not again."   


***

  
Commander Broack smiled and emptied his magazine of fourteen rounds directly into the faces of several surprised enemy troops. Hot blood sprayed from one of the dead men, catching Broack full in the face and chest. He didn't mind; after all, it inspired the men to fight harder.   
"FORWARD!"   
His men gave a raucous battle-cry in response and lurched forward into the fixed fortifications of the enemy troops that defended the airbase. Snow swirled around the air and the troops, wind that was cold enough to make water turn slushy bit hard into exposed flesh.   
'Makes me remember my great-grandfather,' Broack reminisced as he struggled forward through the rapidly piling drifts. The snow had started suddenly, about ten minutes into the actual fight itself. It was now an hour later and the small, white flakes of ice seemed to come down even harder.   
'Such is Russia,' the commander bitterly thought as he wrenched an automatic rifle from the frozen corpse of one unfortunate soldier. He quickly turned its muzzle onto the slowly retreating forms that hid behind camouflaged boxes of Evangelion supplies. A few of which leaked out orange-red LCL, an odd counter-point to the red-pink snow that surrounded most dead bodies that accompanied those boxes.   
The muzzle flared orange itself, and spewed its small, leaden projectiles of death and pain.   
"God how I love my job!" Broack shouted into the air as he cut down two fleeing soldiers.   
A few of his assault team shot grenades into the piled crates and barrels. The explosion that followed illuminated several flying bodies...and body parts, as well as the entrance to the massive air hanger beyond.   
The way seemed clear enough...if you discounted the five APC's and two tanks that were slugging their way through the snow. An RPG slashed through the darkening sky and landed amongst Broack's troops. Cries of the wounded and the dying cut above the snap of the guns and made the commander turn his head.   
"Call in some medics and direct them over there!" he ordered to his radioman.   
"Yessir," the man shouted back.   
Broack peered hard across the blaze of flame that had erupted from the crates, and made a rapid count of the soldiers pouring out of the APC's. "And call up the LAC's, we need some support over here."   
"On it sir!"   
He nodded and dropped the spent rifle. He could always pick up a fresh one later on. Now, though, he needed to get moving.   


***

  
"Echo, Charlie to NHQ...come in please."   
Gendo listened to the man repeat his call for several moments, then watched and listened again as the man switched frequencies and tried again. 'Useless,' he thought. 'They would have thought of that already...though, just maybe-'  
"Commander," a captain came crawling up to the overturned APC that, a half-hour ago, had been transporting Ikari and a platoon of men towards the city of Tokyo-2...and the JSSDF Headquarters. "We've called in the air support. It should be arriving momentarily. We...should get you to an aid station sir."   
A nearby explosion made him and the captain flinch away, with Gendo raising a battered helmet over his head as debris rained down on them. He winced as fresh pain tore across his right arm and thigh; which, in turn, caused his slowly coagulating head wound to re-open and let fresh blood spill down across his eyes.   
"I'm fine captain...now then, let this position be the objective for your men. We're already far ahead of the lines and we need to be relived quickly. Direct all your attention here and to re-opening this road."   
The captain glanced through a hole in the bottom of the APC, caused by a well-placed shell directed by a very competent gunner. It had caused the APC to turn over originally, the explosion killing nearly everybody from the platoon, including the major, as well as the two drivers.   
Gendo supposed that he was fortunate, escaping with only a minor head injury and a deep scratch that ran down the right portion of his torso and thigh. Well, more fortunate than the poor bastard that had been underneath the shell.   
"Sir," the captain returned from his peep through the hole. "I don't think that its possible to re-open this road for at least another three months. The entire left side of that bridge up ahead has been destroyed, and what's left is being used by JSSDF to move ground forces across!"   
Gendo let a quiet sigh of frustration loose and reconsidered his possibilities. There has to be a way to get through on this highway! The staccato of gunfire rose in volume and quickened in tempo.   
"Sir! I've got NERV HQ on the comm!"   
He reached over hastily with his left hand to take the offered headset. Keying the radio, he spoke calmly into the mike. "NHQ this is Echo Charlie, over." The reply was crackly and filled with static to the point of being intelligible. "Say again, over," Gendo asked.   
"-his is NHQ, Hyuuga speaking, ov-r."   
"Lieutenant, this is Commander Ikari here."   
"Command-...-hat are you d-ing there?"   
Gendo smirked a bit as another shell exploded nearby and pondered that question himself. "Not important, what is your situation? Over."   
"...under att-k by JS-F...Heavy fighi-...trying to -t assistance...-ver."   
'Don't expect any too soon,' he wryly thought. Aloud he continued. "Keep them held off, my forces here will try to pull back to the Geofront, over."   
"Rodg-, out."   
Gendo gave a small nod and tossed the communication headset back to the radioman. He caught it with a seemingly practiced easy and set it down before turning back to his rifle. "Captain?"   
The man rolled away from the hole he had been firing through and faced back to his commander. "Yes sir?" he asked, straightening his helmet that had threatened to slip down over his eyes.   
"Call your men forward long enough to throw the advancing units into disarray, then we'll pull back and head to the Geofront. Somehow they've moved around us." The captain nodded in understanding and rolled across Gendo, apologizing afterwards, and began giving orders to the radioman. Who, in turn, relayed them further on. Gendo winced as the pain returned, and contemplated exactly how the hell he had managed to get himself into this position.   
His hand came up to rub his nose.   
God, what a headache he was getting.   


***

  
Misato Katsuragi was in a foul mood. She always seemed to be in a foul mood lately. Permanent PMS mode, as the rumors said. If only they knew. She tugged the hair piece free of the violet locks it restrained. Her shiny hair fell loose and free in the cold air of the metallic corridor. The cell phone came out and flipped down. A rapid dial was pressed.   
"Hyuuga speaking!" came the rapid and confused reply.   
"Hyuuga, Katsuragi. What's the situation?"   
"We've got a full battalion of JSSDF Special Ops attacking the Geofront. Maya tells me that the Magi are being hacked as well, from the six sub-divisional Magi systems in China, the two in Germany, the United States, Russia, and in Matsashiro."   
"Damn-"  
"That's not all," Hyuuga cut in. "They're taking out our remote sensory stations, we have lost all of our above-ground communications and radar stations. And I've just been informed by Commander Ikari that he's tangled up in a ground fight three kilometers out of Tokyo-3."   
"What?" Misato walked into the emergency access shaft for the command bridge and entered her keycard through the ID slot. "What in the hell is Commander Ikari doing up there?"   
"I don't know! But he's requisitioned nearly all of our available assault vehicles and he's just authorized a full mobilization of the air corps."   
The panels slid aside and Misato gripped the proffered railing as a sense of vertigo swept over her. In a few seconds, she was swept up onto the bridge and into the chaos it held. "How far have they penetrated?" Misato rushed over to a nearby command map of NERV Headquarters. It was rapidly turning red.   
"They're just entering the fourth level, but we've managed to halt their advance to that point...for now."   
Misato frowned and considered the possibilities, 'This place isn't meant to fend off human assaults. We could very well lose this battle.'  
"Ma'am? Three units of Section-3 are being moved into position."   
"What? By who's orders?" Misato quickly moved over to the terminal and began accessing the latest orders that were issued. However, she was interrupted by a calm and gentle voice.   
"You can stop that major, for your culprit is here."   
Misato turned and walked up to Sub-Commander Fuyutski, "Sir, it is my responsibility to issue orders for those units! If you do these things without running it past me first then we WILL lose this fight!"   
"I am sorry, major...but I had a moment of intuition and acted accordingly."   
Kouzo smiled at the woman and then moved for the lift to take him up to the commanders' deck. Misato gave the retreating back a hard glare before turning back and continuing her own dictations. "Find Asuka and Shinji! Get them into their Evas!"   
"But Asuka can't pilot hers!" Maya insisted, her eyes wide with fear and frustration as she pounded away at the keyboard of her terminal.   
"THEN PUT HER IN UNIT 01 WITH SHINJI, DAMN IT!"   
The door closed behind him, cutting off any further orders the very competent woman was giving. Kouzo didn't care too much, she knew what she was doing after all. Instead, he worried about what pieces the hidden players of this macabre chess match had hidden up their sleeves.   
'Yes, Seele is starting to fight back now Gendo...but now, instead of all of the council acting in unison...we have them acting individually,' Kouzo frowned as he contemplated the dangers involved with such a risk. 'But if they manage to weaken us with these individual actions...then another might just be able to take it all for themselves. We are in a dangerous position should you fail in any aspect, Gendo.'  
The shaft opened above him and he returned to the uproar of the bridge as it directed the defense of the monolithic building. Kouzo's lips turned into a grim line as he stepped clear of the halted lift, "Or is that how you wanted it?" His small sigh was unnoticed amongst the loud explosions echoing through the labyrinthine NERV corridors.   
Today had been a long day...and it still had a few more hours left to go. Perhaps, then...it would all be over. He reached for his own cell phone and pressed the 6 rapid dial. "Akagi? It appears that your help will be needed sooner than I thought."   


***

  
"Goddamned bastards! WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!" Broack shouted across the din of weapons fire and explosions. Already half his men were down and out for the count, but so were many of his oppositions forces. It's just that they were too damn stubborn for their own good. After all, if you had the chance to surrender or run, wouldn't you take it?   
"Damn Seele bastards!" he cursed again, ripping an old model AK-47 out of the snowy prison that encapsulated it. One sharp pull cleared its jam and it was usable again, as Broack demonstrated by cutting down two holdovers by the hanger doors.   
His men closed the semicircle in, bullets flared and sparked as they slammed into the over-large doors of the aircraft maintenance hanger. Men screamed in pain or grunted in amazement as they succumbed to the irresistible pull of death that was delivered by way of a hot piece of dense metal.   
Blood melted the snow and ran in streams to form red lakes.   
Another rocket shot out into the night and exploded against the ground nearby. Broack let another curse fly as he rolled over several mangled bodies to escape the explosive device. He came out of his tumble with the barrel leading, and sprayed the darkened interior with lead.   
Several men rushed the doors, grenades in hand and waiting to be used. Broack ceased his attack and dropped into a bank of white ice just as his soldiers tossed in their explosives.   
One-one thousand.   
Two-one thousand.   
Three-one thousand.   
**Boom.**   
A wall of red flame erupted from the darkened entranceway, and screams of those unfortunate enough to believe the grenades to be the shrapnel kind wafted out of the interior. Napalm hand grenades...lethal, and ruthlessly effective. His men stormed through that hellstrom and quickly silenced the burning husks of men forever.   
Off to his left, a line of LAT's advanced and opened fire on a similar line of approaching old-model Russian tanks. A distant explosion sounded as an AP round found its mark and cut through the hot diesel engine of its target.   
More of his men rushed into the flame enshrouded doorway. Broack wasn't far behind. "LIGHTS! TURN ON THE DAMN LIGHTS AND SECURE THE PERIMETER!" his cry echoed eerily through the cavernous depths.   
Soon, enormous flood lamps several dozen meters above the ground, flickered and flared into life. He had to bite his cheek in order to stop the gasp. Nine Evangelions...white...and for all intents and purposes, instruments of the devil himself.   
Broack motioned to the red entry plugs that hung ever so above the units and ordered his men: "Blow those damn things to hell and let's be done with it."   
The soldiers wasted no time. Nine RPG's flashed through the reeking, smoky air and struck their marks, dead center. The commander smiled as the red plugs twisted and tore apart...then he ordered a second strike. Just to be sure.   


***

  
Keel rushed about his mansion, issuing orders for its defense and drinking glasses of brandy like the end of the world was going to come about before he had his fill. Many of the servants flinched away from his wildly swinging hands, but they followed his orders exactly.   
They dared not do otherwise.   
Slowly, a man of old age, but younger than Keel himself, stepped forward and before the optical wearing Seele member. "Father? What's happening?"   
The deep bass voice had a sedative effect on Keel, instantly calming his furious motions and leaving him breathless with a half-full crystal, cut glass of dark brandy in his hand. The servants looked to the new arrival with a pleading look, and he motioned them out of the room.   
"Boy, why are you here? I thought I sent you to look after my investments in Africa," Keel reeled from the effects of the brandy, and only managed to collapse into one of the plush chairs with the help of his son.   
"I did, and I have returned to find my father the drunkard...shouting at his house servants about an attack. Father?" Keel gave a slurred grunt. "Who would attack you?"   
Keel stared through the red lense of his optics for a moment, then he shook violently. His son began to worry for a moment as the elderly man burst into a roaring, knee-slapping laugh. After several failed attempts, Keel managed to calm himself.   
"Who wouldn't..." His son looked on him with simple, questioning eyes. "My boy, my poor, innocent boy...you have no idea, what I have done in my years," Keel shook his head back and forth a few times as he lamented.   
"Really? You think that I don't know what you've been doing with Seele these past fifty years?"   
That brought Keel up short. "Wh-what did you say?"   
The son stared down hard at the withered old man, "You heard me father, Seele...the Dead Sea Scrolls, NERV, Evangelion, Human Instrumentality Project...You really should change the passcodes for your files more often."   
The old man could barely move.   
"The whole plan is in ruins by now," the younger man scoffed as he wrenched the glass away from his father. "Several assault units have already taken care of your Seele Council...only you, the Japanese Minister of Defense, and your Russian and German friends are left."   
"But...how?"   
"How did I know? Or how did Ikari know?" his son left the question hanging for a moment. "It doesn't really matter, the point is...you've lost everything. The JSSDF is attacking NERV now, but they will eventually fail...and your vaunted Mass Production Evangelions are now in the hands of your enemies."   
"I-Impossible!...the plan, the scenario...how did Ikari find their location so easily?" Keel looked up at his son, who amused himself with a thick, leather-bound book from one of the shelves. The boy read with half-lidded eyes that seemed to look more at Keel than at the Kanji held within.   
"Who said Ikari held them?"   
Realization broke over the horizon of Keel's mind, "You?"   
"Finally! Your dull wit manages to find the mark and sticks!...Yes, my forces now have control of your vaunted Mass Production Evangelions...and Ikari knows about you and your Seele cronies."   
"Why?" Keel sank lower into the chair, his hands falling limply against the cracks of the seat cushion. 'There's a pistol in this chair...let him talk, and I will get him after he tells me all he knows.'  
The boy smiled, "I have been informing Ikari about certain...plans, since the start of NERV, father. You see, I didn't want you to complete your version of Third Impact...if you had listened to those advisors we'd brought in during the Katsuragi Expedition, you would have known that the last Impact would have been a disaster...just like the first one was."   
"How can you be sure!" Keel spat out.   
"How can you be so confidante that your version would be...what humanity needed?" the boy put down the book and stepped forward to just behind another seat.   
Keel slowly moved his hands down further, "What about the Jet Alone project?"   
His son rolled his eyes with frustration, "You know as well as I that your, 'side' project wasn't supposed to do anything. It was merely to keep the other nations in line and continue using NERV...though I admit, I hadn't expected you to personally fund that sham operation." Keel could feel the cold steel of the grip now, just a little bit longer. "But, you should have covered you tracks better, old man. And now, Seele will be incinerated because you failed to keep secrets from your own son."   
"Malachi, why?" A hint of disbelief, 'Yes...let the fool think that he is in control. It will all be over soon.'  
Malachi Keel smirked, "Well father, you could say it was all your fault really... because of your files...I knew exactly what your, Instrumentality Project was supposed to do...and I knew exactly who every member of Seele was. And thus, your Impact has been averted...and it will never be attempted by man again until we are ready!"   
Keel frowned, "But what if Rei Ayanami is still alive? What if there is one more clone of her left for him to use?! He could still initiated his own Third Impact! All you've done will have been for nothing if she's still alive!"   
Malachi smiled again, "Trust me father...I can prevented Ikari's Impact if I need to."   
Keel felt what remained of his body go cold, and with a lurch he shot up from the recliner. The pistol whipped up and around, the hammer pulled back with a sharp snick, and his finger tightened on the trigger. The hammer fell forward with a dull-   
_Click._  
Malachi frowned for a moment and stepped out from behind the chair, pulling out his own pistol. "Really, do you expect me to put you into a chair that held a loaded weapon? God how you think I'm a fool, as if I hadn't found those things since I was a child." He scoffed and ridiculed the older Keel as his own weapon was pointed at the man's head. "Goodbye, father. Have a nice afterlife in Hell."   
The servants in the halls flinched at the sudden gunshot, then scurried away from the parlor doors without a second glance. If any time would be a good time to run, it was now. They took that chance, and fled.   


***

  
Shinji held onto Asuka's hand as though it would be the only thing to anchor him to sanity. He clenched his eyes shut and grit his teeth hard as the explosions rolled through the foundations of the hospital. Several times he had to stand up and block some minor debris from falling on the comatose girl.   
'Don't know why I still put up with all this shit for her,' he thought ruefully as he brushed himself off from the latest incident. 'Don't know why...but I do.' Blood dripped from his eyebrow, a minor cut from the second or third time he had put himself in harm's way. It didn't hurt much now, only a slight sting. Still...   
"I'm really fucked up."   
And here he was, sitting next to what remained of the most beautiful girl in all of Tokyo-3, or Japan if you believed what she often spouted as her rhetoric. Not that it had helped her any...no, no. It hadn't helped her at all. Pride, hubris...what a bunch of Greek nonsense. Yet, at the same time, how true...how true.   
"Asuka...please," Shinji pleaded again, desperate for someone to talk to. "Please, you've got to wake up...Please! PLEASE!"   
The girl shifted slightly, but didn't sit up or speak. She still slept in her waking nightmare. The door swung open and banged against the wall. "Shinji?"   
The boy looked up at the frightened nurse and gently extracted himself from Asuka's hand. "Shinji, you've got to get Asuka and take her to-"  
"The Eva...I know," the boy sighed and stood up.   
"You just wait outside and I'll get the machines detached...okay?"   
Another explosion tore through the building close by, Shinji nodded his assent and moved for the door. "Don't take to long."   
The nurse hastened to her duties, leaving Shinji to close the door and wait.   


***

  
Kensuke patiently waited, buried underneath a light covering of rubble and debris from a nearby bomb crater, as a column of JSSDF special Ops moved past him. He nearly gagged again as he spied one of the soldiers gun down a fleeing NERV technician, but managed to keep down his bile.   
What the hell are you doing here Kensuke? You're gonna get killed!   
'Shut up will ya! I'm trying to make it through this alive.'  
He listened to the sounds of gunfire fade in the distance for several minutes before he felt it was safe enough to stand up again. A quick dusting off of his clothes and a short glance around confirmed that he was indeed alone in the hall...apart from the twenty or more dead people that is.   
He stopped at one and pulled out its automatic pistol, checking to make sure it was loaded of course, and then chambering a round. 'Won't be needing this anymore,' was his pessimistic thought. 'Now then, I've managed to sneak into NERV Headquarters...what should I do next?'  
"Attention! Attention! JSSDF forces have reached the hospital wing! All units are to engage the enemy there!"   
Kensuke blinked at the announcement and then turned to look at the directory map nearby. 'Those men were probably heading for the Hospital Wards, so...'   
He memorized the map as best he could and then took off for the stairwells. Time to visit a friend.   


***

  
Toji Suzahara wasn't having the best day in his life.   
No, actually...he wasn't having the worst day of his life. That had been when his leg was taken by that damned Angel-infected Evangelion. Bastardly creation. Now, now it was just the ever-present sound of weapons being discharged...and grenades going off. Oh, and the screams of the dying, and then there was all of those explosions-  
The sarcastic train of thought was derailed when his door opened and in popped one blood and dust covered military brat. "K-Kensuke! What the hell are you doing here?!"   
Kensuke impatiently shushed him and pressed his ear against the door, his ears trained for any noise that might give away advancing soldiers.   
Toji let his eyes slid down the sandy-haired boy, trailing his arms and spotting all of the small nicks and bruises that he had collected in what might have been a helluva adventure. Ending at his hands, where he carried a smoking semi-automatic pistol.   
"I think they've gone past now," the boy sighed in relief and sagged away from the door.   
"Who?" Toji asked.   
"The JSSDF, NERV...anyone with a pistol or rifle at the moment."   
"What's going on?"   
"I really don't know," Kensuke slid back from the steel door and further along the wall, deeper into the shadows that played there. "All I can tell you is that the JSSDF has blocked off Tokyo-3 completely...even surrounded and cut off the damn wood trails."   
Toji struggled to sit upright, "How do you know?" Kensuke remained silent for a long time, the sounds of battle faded even more in the lapse. "How, Kensuke?"   
"I was nearly gunned down by them trying to get back home..." The boy sounded scared, defeated, tired, and lonely. Even with the darkness that enveloped him, Toji could plainly see that Kensuke was shaking horribly. Flinching at every gunshot, shifting with every grenade's dull thump and roar. "It's a lot different...actually being in one."   
Toji nodded his head before he sank back into the white sheets of his bed. Absently he noted how stark they would be if his blood was all over them. His body shuddered with the thought. 'I hope Hikari is okay.'  


***

  
"Flood level three with Bakelite! Cut the bastards off and then tell the defending units to press forward!"   
"Yes Ma'am!"   
Misato sat back and watched the Bakelite infusion begin. Within minutes the entire third level of the headquarters building was covered in the fast-sealing compound. In another few, her own units surged forward and decimated the surrounded JSSDF units. A small iota of glee emerged as she saw the attacking special ops units slaughtered by unmerciful NERV defenders.   
'Not one ounce of sympathy...not for these bastards.'  
"Ma'am? Asuka and Shinji have reached the Evangelion hanger bays...they're under escort as per your orders," Maya supplied just as Misato's tension and worry for her wards reached it's peak.   
She let loose a very audible sigh, "Thanks, Maya. Tell them to get suited Asuka suited up and insert her into Eva Unit 01. Then launch it into the lake."   
If Asuka couldn't help fight them off, at least she would be safe with Shinji in his Eva. Misato hoped.   
"Yes Ma'am...Shinji is in the changing room and will be done in a few moments."   
"Good," Misato turned and studied the last known map taken of the surrounding areas. Since the JSSDF had taken out all of the remote sensor stations they had to rely on old data and guestimations of enemy dispositions and strengths. This would be a long, hard fight to get clear.   
Kouzo watched the major work with a delicate interest. He nodded silently with each of her command decisions as they came out, sometimes too fast for him to keep up, and simply noted the actions of his bridge crew. 'That girl does know what she's doing...you trained her well, Akagi.'  
Even know, the aforementioned doctor was helping her still-fresh apprentice fend off the attacking Magi daughter systems. Through several invitingly placed program files, Akagi managed to lead Maya to a little accessed protection system that had been installed into the Magi mainframes when she herself had yet to transfer to the Gherin project.   
Soon the short haired bridge tech found the file and accessed it. A brief scan and she sent it into motion.   


***

  
In a different part of the world, perhaps in one that didn't even exist in reality, three holograms thrummed in unison as they arrived. Though, to hear that noise, it would set a man's teeth rattling. Three out of twelve.   
"One is not here," Four intoned.   
"They have killed him then. And our project will still continue forward none the less," declared Eight. "Already my troops have penetrated deep into Ikari's lair...all we need now is for Six to launch his units and start the Red Earth Ceremony."   
Six remained silent.   
"Six," Four quietly asked. "Are the Mass Production units still within our control?"   
Six remained quiet for a few more moments, and then whispered out, "No. Ikari...or someone else...has them now. My guards were destroyed and the re-enforcement's obliterated."   
"Impossible!" Eight shouted. "How did Ikari know where we sent the Evangelions?"   
The room was silent as each computed the answer. They responded all at once. "Sabotage."   
"Yes," Six continued when the echo died. "It has to be somebody from the council who leaked information to Ikari...but who?" Another thrum echoed in the vast expanse of the Seele Council room...Seele One had arrived.   
"Keel?! I thought you were dead!" Eight shouted.   
"We have been betrayed Keel, Ikari has taken the Mass Production models...our scenario is falling apart," Six began.   
"Yes, I know...I suggest that you hide yourselves in far-off places gentlemen. If you survive the next year, I will hold another session at midnight...precisely one year from now. Understand?"   
They each let off a thrum in rapid succession and in short order, vanished.   
Malachi smiled wanly as he deactivated the holoprojector and the voice-synthesizer.   
'Damn old fools, too easily deceived. Should never have put in these voice-synthesizers in the first place...well, its their own fault if they are so easily manipulated.'   
He stood and shuffled out of the cold room that his father used to frequent so often throughout his meager lifetime. It wasn't so impressive as it had first been, and now it wasn't so foreboding. Now, it was just a cold familiarity...just another tool.   
Like his pistol.   


***

  
"Colonel! We've received the latest reports from Tokyo-3."   
"Let me see them." The aide rushed over with the flimsy and crudely written message scrawled messily on the piece of yellow radio paper. It was hard to make out, with his eyes, but he managed to do it. "Damn that incompetent Minister, doesn't that idiot know what these people have done for us? Does he know what he's doing anymore?!"   
Of course he does, his inner voice told him. After all, didn't he send you and all of your other NERV supporting buddies out here?   
'Shut up!'  
Colonel Hashi Yurimai was old, old enough to remember how wars used to be...back before the Second Impact. Back then, wars were a thing of dignity and respect for ones opponents...in the mind. In reality it had been brutal and ruthless, a hard-fought firefight lasting no more than two to three minutes. If it was a prolonged engagement, then it might get uglier. Claymores, grenades, air strikes, attack helicopters, flamethrowers, even bayonets if the ammo ran short.   
But this...this wasn't even that kind of fight. What he was reading on the near-unintelligible message in front of him was something that couldn't even be described by the hell that was war. What he read about...was a bloody massacre.   
His short and wrinkled frame heaved a sigh in frustration as his hands crumpled the paper. With a blinding fury he found himself ripping his beret clean off his balding head and throwing it across the room. Hashi didn't quite ever remember what he yelled after that, but by the looks on his soldiers faces...it must have been exceedingly foul.   
"Colonel," he turned and faced his second-in-command.   
"Yessir?" the faithful and competent Lieutenant Colonel replied, taking a brave step forward.   
"Prepare the men for departure," instantly the headquarters tent flew into action, men disassembled equipment and started moving heavy equipment out. "We're going to Tokyo-3."   
"Sir!" His second gave a smart salute and hurried out of the rapidly moving tent, shouting for the company commanders as he ran for the vehicles.   
'Time to get that bastard Minister at his own game.'  
Indeed.   


~~~

  


_To Be Concluded_


	2. Birthday of a Pilot Director's Cut

This is the first fic, to be followed by others, that will comprise a series of one-shots. Author Preconceived Disclaimer: As you read this you will be interested to note that a certain takeover of the company known as Gainax has been engineered recently. If you will all turn on your television sets to CNN you will see my handsome, picture perfect face right above the words:  
  
I OWN THIS BITCH-ASS COMPANY! SUCK THAT YOU PANSY WANNABE WRITERS! I OWN THIS COPYRIGHT NOW!!  
  
But don't be alarmed. In fact, using my new copyrights: I intend to gather all of the great Fanfiction Authors of that lovely series known as Evangelion. And have them write a book for each of their Fanfics.  
  
OTHERWISE! I SUE! IWILLIWILLIWILLIWILLIWILLIWIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!! Nyyyaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!  
  
*Thumbs nose at audience* I AM THE PUMPKIN KING!!  
  
*Bludgeoned with heavy mallet borrowed from Akane (No, don't own that either)* The author of this fic would like to apologize for that last Preconceived Disclaimer. It was wrong, and in no way reflects the true maturity level of the author himself. Or any of his schizophrenic personalities...except for Mr. Bunnies...and Captain Fruitfly...BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT! Now, on to the real disclaimer.  
  
AU Warning. I have artistic license and I'm driving like Misato sober!  
  
Angst Warning: Not really too much, just a touch of darkness to set a mood.  
  
Authors Personality Warning: My friends call me Shinji...really. And I have a birthday coming up recently and I *AM* depressed about it. This is a reflection of what I can conceive Shinji going through.  
  
Timeline Warning: After Karou. Take that book called Shinseki Eva and goto last two episodes and the movies. Prepare to rip out...RIP OUT! Begin AU!  
  
Warning Warning: Too many of them!  
  
Warning about the Warnings: IF YOU READ THIS: I SHALL TURN YOU INTO A NEWT! GET ON TO THE STORY DAMN YOUR EYES! (No, don't own Mel Brooks either...maybe if he's dead...)  
  
Reviewed and Commented on By: Tchernobyl1. Arigato Tchernobyl for your review and criticism. Even your comment about how I was actually good at what I was doing. That was a big boost for me in getting this done.  
  
The Seldon Planner Presents  
  
Birthday of a Pilot  
  
  
  
It had been raining since three in the morning. Shinji blinked as he watched the faint gray dawn approach without warning. The sun hidden from his view by the ever-present clouds that saw fit to pour out their condensed vapor. He was soaked, staying up all night out on the balcony in the rain does that to a person.  
  
But he didn't care...why should he.  
  
"Might even kill me and end my suffering." He mirthlessly mouthed out before glancing down at his waterlogged watch and checking the time once again.  
  
06:37  
  
The watch beeped a soft alarm which he quickly silenced.  
  
"Happy birthday...Shinji."  
  
And he turned and walked into his darkened home.  
  
  
  
He quickly moved about his room, changing out of his wet clothes and getting into dry ones. Smoothing out his ragged hair and brushing it down into what he hoped was something close to normal. He stopped for a moment as his fingers trailed down to his eyebrow. His eyes narrowed and his skin wrinkled as the delicate sensory organs traced the thin white scar that ran down across the thin hair above his eye.  
  
He sighed and dropped down to his bed.  
  
'Why do I do this?' he thought. 'Why do I do the same thing every year...no one cares...not father, not my Aunt and Uncle, not my teacher...Misato probably doesn't even remember. Asuka......Asuka wouldn't care if I dropped off of the Earth and died.'  
  
He finished putting his socks on and paused a moment, eyeing tentatively the last item he wanted to put on. It was the last thing in the very back of his small closet. A small patch of brown in a sea of blue, white, and black uniforms. Shinji sighed once and reached for the leather jacket, a small smile crossing his face as he recalled this particular clothing article.  
  
But he crushed it quickly as he remembered when he had gotten it.  
  
He really never had a chance to wear it since it was eternal summer in Japan. It was more sentimental value rather than anything else...a happy memory for his bleak outlook on life. Today, today it would have a purpose though. And he was happy for that.  
  
The rain fell steadily down.  
  
***  
  
Asuka yawned loudly as she rolled over in her bed. Almost as if they possessed intelligence of their own her eyes opened and stared menacingly at her alarm clock, poised several feet away from her bed so as to give it a chance to actually wake the pilot up before her hand descended on it.  
  
07:01  
  
"Damn..." she groaned out, bringing her hand up to slap her face abstractly. "Why do I have to wake up this early on my one day off? Is it too much to ask to sleep in till ten?"  
  
She groaned again as her ears finally registered the dull patter of water hitting on the sides of her room and rolled over onto her belly, covering her head with the warm pillow. That's when she heard the front door open.  
  
"Unh..? Who the hell would go out in something like this?" She asked, her eyes narrowing as she stared out at her own door. She waited a moment, then another before she heard the door close.  
  
'Could it...no...he wouldn't, not in this weather...would he?'  
  
Asuka ended her thoughts in a growl of frustration and leapt from beneath her warm sheets, shivering a bit as the damp clammy air closed in around her unprotected skin, and confidently walked out of the room. She crossed the hall in two steps and hesitated before the one door with a sign on it. Her hand reached out and likewise hesitated before she reclaimed control of it and reached for the handle.  
  
"Hey Shinji-"  
  
As the door slid to a halt, Asuka could see the bed of her co-worker.  
  
It was made, and empty.  
  
'Why the hell would he go out in something like this?' she asked the room, a bare room as she distractedly noted. Before turning to look over his desk, thinking to find some accusing evidence to point to his perverted inside.  
  
What she found was something else. His phone, wallet, ID, and a small desk calender. The date, today she noted with interest, was circled in black pen. She also noticed the smudged ink that littered that page, as if he had been crying.  
  
"What's so important about this day that he would cry over it?" she asked with an incredulous air. She paused and realized that for several days she had noticed him becoming more withdrawn, quieter, and on several occasions not even responding to her gibes and insults...not even to apologize.  
  
Something was wrong...and apparently today was the reason he was becoming depressed. But what was today?  
  
'Misato will know. She always knows what's wrong with that pervert.'  
  
And with a smirk she turned and left Shinji's sanctuary, her presence immediately dissipating as Shinji's more familiar emotions closed in an transformed it back to his room. His lonely, cold, insensitive room with bare walls.  
  
The rain beat down harder.  
  
***  
  
To Shinji, the rain was a blessing. It salved his troubled and turbulent mind. Soothed his disturbed soul.  
  
To him, the rain that drove man and women alike from the streets and forests in search of shelter, was but a gentle caress that could have been a passing person that took a moment to pity him. Pity him and comfort him...and for a boy who had little comforts in his life, this small pleasure was painfully aware in his subconscious. But he didn't mind. Small pleasures are meant to be had on ones birthday...and for him, small pleasures are more important than a hundred gifts.  
  
'Not that you have had much of either.'  
  
Shinji frowned at his last thought, blinking several times as cold rain trickled down along the line of his scar and into his eyes. He reached up and brushed them away, taking his surroundings with his cleared eyes as soon as he could.  
  
"Almost there...almost."  
  
And still the rain continued. But he didn't mind, he didn't mind at all.  
  
***  
  
Asuka glanced up at the clock and growled as she flipped her eggs over in a half-hearted attempt to make an omelet. She cursed silently and in one swift motion made the mess turn into scrambled yellow and white.  
  
"Geez, Misato...could you at least try to wake up one minute earlier than normal?" she complained to her guardians door.  
  
She paused as the thought of actually going into her room and waking her up ran fleetingly across her mind. But then she remembered Shinji's warning the first day she moved in with them...and the unspoken rule he followed in never going into her room.  
  
The spatula lowered for a moment as she considered her roommate. She had been living with him for nearly a year now, the last angels either not deigning to show themselves, or having been killed off already. She had gone through some serious times...and some memorable occasions with Shinji.  
  
"...Shinji...Oh! Why the HELL am I thinking about him at a time like this!?" Asuka furiously shouted at the eggs that she noticed beginning to blacken.  
  
"Schiese..."  
  
"Oi! What the hell are you yelling at Asuka?"  
  
Misato's unprecedented appearance made her ward give a piercing cry and jump slightly against the stove. Unfortunately for Asuka, the stove was on, and her hand landed on it.  
  
Neighbors considered the value of their health as the second cry that morning made them groan and shift, silently cursing NERV and all its affiliates.  
  
"Ow, damn..."  
  
"I'll get some lotion for it," Misato returned moments later with the cooling medicinals and watched with an amused eye as Asuka silently took it and rubbed it in gingerly. "So, where's Shinji?"  
  
Asuka couldn't help but be amazed at Misato's clear headedness. She even felt her jaw drop as she noticed no beer cans in the immediate vicinity of her guardians hands or feet.  
  
"What? Asuka, hello?"  
  
"Do you have some secret stash of beer in a hidden fridge that you told Section 2 to install when we were out?"  
  
"No Asuka," Misato gave a small laugh. " If you're wondering about me, I just do that morning routine when Shinji's here."  
  
"How did you know he wasn't?" Asuka slyly asked, still believing in the hidden stockpile of Yebisu theory.  
  
"Shinji doesn't let the eggs burn so badly that they wake me up," Misato's eyebrow arched.  
  
She then laughed as Asuka threw out her entire book of curses in English, German, Japanese, Spanish, and a few more that sounded like Greek, Italian, or Latin. After Asuka subdued herself Misato looked down the hall at Shinji's door.  
  
"Is he sick today? God I hope not, no one should be sick on a day like this."  
  
"No, that idiot isn't even here," Asuka replied, finally standing and appraising the mess of black and yellow smoking in the frying pan.  
  
"WHAT?"  
  
The two NERV personnel ignored the loud thump from the apartment above them.  
  
"What do you mean he isn't here?" Misato continued, her voice a few decibels above normal.  
  
"He isn't. I woke up around seven and heard the door open and shut. I went to see if Shinji was coming back to his room but he wasn't there."  
  
"Shit! Did he leave anything?" her voice became concerned and her eyes pleading.  
  
"Yeah, His ID, cell, wallet."  
  
"Crap! Why didn't you come find me!" Misato stood and rushed to her door, but was stopped by Asuka's tight grip.  
  
"Just what the hell is up, hun? What's so important about today that the moron would cry over it? I mean I know he's just a pansy but-"  
  
Misato's palm silenced Asuka's insulting speech quickly and forcefully, and for several minutes the two stood quietly, not daring to speak or say anything. Finally Misato spoke up.  
  
"You just don't know, do you. You always never did pay much attention to others lives...especially his."  
  
Asuka held her hand up to the red cheek and rubbed it gently.  
  
"Do you know what he did after the fourth?" Misato sat down, praying that Shinji would be alright for a few hours.  
  
"I read the reports," came the sullen reply as Asuka sat as well.  
  
"What isn't in the reports is that he wasn't fourteen when we put him in Shogoki."  
  
"W-what?"  
  
"From what I gathered from Ritsuko, he was born later than was expected and we all assumed that his birthday was just past as he arrived here...it was actually four weeks later."  
  
"Right when he ran away..." Asuka finished.  
  
"There are other things about that date that aren't in the reports," Misato gave into her need and reached back into the fridge for her morning sustenance...beer.  
  
"Like what?" Asuka was beginning to take an interest in all of this. The Invincible Third Child, now being repainted into more of a wimp than she first imagined.  
  
"Toji Suzahara-" Misato's voice caught at that name but she downed a beer and continued. "Actually clobbered him pretty good for his sister getting into the hospital."  
  
"Hun?" Asuka knew Toji's sister was in the hospital, but why beat up Shinji?  
  
"He blamed Shinji on putting her there in the first place, as so he took it out on Shinji...who took it without a word of complaint," Misato laughed bitterly as she saw Asuka's mouth drop slightly. "Then later that same day he nearly killed both Toji and that other kid...Kensaku?"  
  
"Kensuke Aida," Asuka supplied.  
  
"Yeah, him. Nearly squashed them like a bug with Shigoki. Two meters either way and they could have become red paste on a mountain."  
  
Misato crumpled her beer can as a demonstration before tossing it to the side and reaching back into the recesses of the fridge for another three.  
  
"So, what happened?"  
  
"He was chewed out by me...and he retreated to his room for five days. It took me that long to figure out he had left before then. Section 2 couldn't even track him," she griped as her fingers ripped off the tab to her next beer. "He wandered, I guess...we don't even know where he went those days. Until Section 2 caught up with him in a field with...Kensuka?"  
  
"Kensuke," Asuka replied in a frustrated tone.  
  
"Right...anyway, they found him and I gave him a choice: pilot Eva or leave Tokyo-3."  
  
Asuka leaned forward and asked her question as Misato began to down her second, "He chose to stay?"  
  
That made her guardian start a bit and she hastily pulled the beer away from her mouth and wiped her lips with a convenient forearm.  
  
"No," Misato continued after she had made herself decent enough. "No, he left."  
  
"What?! So why is he still here?" Asuka stood up, her chair slamming into the ground and the table creaking as the Germans hands slammed into its tabletop.  
  
"Sit down Asuka, let me finish," Misato waited several minutes under her friends glare until she relented and sat in a upright chair. Both she and Misato winced as they realized who's chair she had sat in, but continued.  
  
"Section 2 took him to the station. He met Toji and..."  
  
"Kensuke," Asuka supplied once more.  
  
"-there. They had his stuff with them, apparently Shinji forgot it at Kensuke's campsite and so they deduced rather quickly where he could be found and returned it to him."  
  
"Amazing, the pair might actually have brains between the two of them," the red head's sardonic remark seemed trite and out of place for the situation. Misato frowned and turned her gaze outside the balconies windows, her eyes stoically taking in the rain.  
  
"Shinji asked for a moment...the conversation doesn't matter, rather what he did in it."  
  
"What, break down and cry as he left his friends?" Asuka felt a little annoyed as she predicted his spineless moments. When Misato didn't speak she finally let her confidant expression die.  
  
"He nearly put Toji out cold."  
  
Asuka blinked.  
  
"The rest doesn't really matter though, it's the words he said right before the Section 2 men left him that really caught everyone's attention....He said...he said happy birthday," Misato finished her beer and started on the fourth, Asuka frowned as she didn't remember her starting on the third. "It's been a year in Hell for him Asuka...I'd assume that you would know about it-"  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?" her tone shifted to indignation.  
  
"But you've had your own problems, and those take priority for you...but I read up on some of his previous life. He's done this before..."  
  
Asuka finally realized something, and she cursed her stupidity for taking this long to do it, "Today's his birthday...isn't it."  
  
Misato nodded, then continued, "Every year he's done something like this...he's-"  
  
"He runs away from everything! That's what he does!"  
  
Misato looked up blankly and nodded, "I'm not saying what he does is the best thing in the world to do Asuka...but I wanted to try and stop him from doing it this year, I just guess he was too fast for me to stop."  
  
"What do you mean, stop?"  
  
"Have you looked in the spice rack Asuka?"  
  
The German girl looked dumbly at her guardian for a moment. Then she followed the line of Misato's point and noticed an envelope, blue, with Shinji's name on it sitting directly in the middle.  
  
"Usually he takes spices from that shelf to use in breakfast. And when I found you making it I assumed that he hadn't gotten up yet, or he had and just ignored it. Now its too late," she downed her last drops and slammed the can down hard.  
  
"Why do you say that? We could go look for him, drag his sorry ass back here-"  
  
"Asuka, if the boy can elude Section 2 for four days how are we going to find him?"  
  
Misato's logic is an annoyance; confusing at some times, then perfectly clear in others. Asuka growled her displeasure and sat back heavily in the chair, rocking it back on two legs.  
  
"Well...why don't we just sit here and enjoy the day off. There isn't really anything we can do for the boy. He will come back when he's had enough of his moping," Misato tried to cheer the girl up, reaching back and re-opening the fridge. An estranged 'warrk' startled both females momentarily as the opening door hit a passing Pen Pen, who took the opportunity to snag a beer before bolting off for his own room.  
  
Asuka gave the penguin a strange look before he ran away, and laughed at Misato who cursed Pen Pen for stealing her beer. But it died off quickly as she remembered the conversation.  
  
"Shinji," she mouthed, unnoticed by Misato as she tried to pry open Pen Pen's door with her hands.  
  
The rain continued.  
  
***  
  
And Shinji noticed.  
  
It wasn't that he was cold. Well, he was but it didn't affect him much. His jacket kept most of the cold at bay, though it didn't help much as some water trickled down his neck and soaked his shirt. He silently accepted this as his one connection to the reality of what he was doing. And he accepted it as a blessing for hiding his tears.  
  
Shinji wondered if that was why he liked the rain so much. But he pushed that aside and resumed his gaze out across the marvelous city called Tokyo- 3...his home. He wondered why he came back here...why he even bothered to stop his legs from lifting him over the railing that seperated him from the three hundred meter drop. A drop that would effectively end his pain and suffering.  
  
He wondered, and he cried.  
  
'No one would care...no one. The only one's who would care are dead...the only one who would be hurt is me.'  
  
He stood, watching the blinking lights of a repairing Tokyo-3 blink on and off through a sheet of opaque gray.  
  
'Gray...like Karou's hair...like Rei's mood....like Tousan's stone heart.'  
  
Shinji sighed once more before pushing himself off of the railing and turning away. Leaving the one place that his guardian had brought him to after his first battle. He liked reminding himself why exactly he continued to live. Even if no one cared.  
  
He headed for the nearest bus stop, there were two more places to visit...then he would head home. Home to his normal life. If taking the pity of his guardian while giving her pity in return could be considered normal. If being hated by one's secret love could be called normal.  
  
If one could do that...then it is normal.  
  
The rain cared not...it merely fell.  
  
***  
  
Asuka hated the rain. It brought back too many bad memories.  
  
Memories about the fifteenth angel...about her coma.  
  
She grimly smiled as she recalled the first thing she saw after waking up. It had been Shinji, curled up like a ball. Getting sleep in an uncomfortable looking chair off in a distant corner. He was half-covered by a blanket that some kind nurse had probably thrown over him after he had closed his eyes. But now it was strewn haphazardously around his legs and lower torso.  
  
At first she felt anger. Anger that he was here, probably to mock her with his superiority. Anger at his weakness and his apathetic personality. Anger simply because she had nothing else left to give out to the world.  
  
Then she noticed the dark rings under his eyes, and the scar that ran above them. She knew a lot about sleep deprivation as a college graduate with a minor in psychology and physiology should. She could in a few moments determine the exact amount of days a person had gone without sleep just by analyzing the thickness of the ring and by more subtle things.  
  
To her eyes, Shinji had gone nearly six days without rest...but, where he had gotten the scar was a mystery to her.  
  
'Why? I never asked why he did that,' Asuka thought silently.  
  
"What's on your mind Asuka?" Misato was lounging on the couch...but she was tense, alert.  
  
"...Well, no...its nothing."  
  
Misato glanced up at her second ward and then turned back to her book. She had done her best to find a replacement for Kaji...it failed miserably at first. But a few weeks ago Shinji had given her a book, telling her she might find some solace in it. The cover had been torn off, and the title had long since worn off from constant re-reading. But it did help; and now she went to the library ever so often to search out for new books, new escapes from her pain.  
  
'I'll admit it is running away. But it helps more than anything else,' she silently added, turning the page and reading on in her latest book.  
  
I will not fear. For fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I shall face my fear. I shall-  
  
"I wonder where he went."  
  
Misato looked up from her page and gazed softly at her downcast pilot. She wondered if it might be worth the trouble, and decided that it might bring the whole thing to an end. And that might result in a hitch.  
  
"Y'know..."  
  
"What?" Asuka eagerly asked, leaning forward against the kitchen table.  
  
"Kensuke-"  
  
"Finally got it right," Asuka muttered quickly.  
  
Misato stuck her tongue out and continued, "Might know where he would have gone. You could ask him and go out to find Shinji."  
  
Asuka's eyes widened at this then narrowed, as she seemed to regain her senses, "Are you trying to blackmail me on purpose?"  
  
"Hun?" Misato put her book down alongside her beer, honestly confused at the turn of topics.  
  
"Asking that stooge is like trying to get a favor from Gendo Ikari!" Asuka ignored Misato's pained wince and continued in a louder voice. "He'll haunt me to the grave and consistently ask me to return the favor by doing something I'd rather burn at the stake for before I do it!"  
  
The tenants were all up by this time so none of them even bothered to thump the floor, ceiling, or walls for silence. It was entertaining, somewhat.  
  
"Oh, comon! If you said that Shinji could be in trouble he would do it," Misato tried to salve the situation and get the girl moving.  
  
"Hell will freeze before that happens," Asuka's tone made Pen Pen shiver in his fridge.  
  
"Well," Misato rummaged around underneath the couch for a moment before pulling up another book. "According to Dante, Hell is frozen in the Eighth circle...or was it the Ninth?"  
  
Asuka's left eyebrow developed an annoying tick, "I knew Shinji was planning to do something like this...he's humiliating me through you and those...those DAMN BOOKS OF HIS!"  
  
"Asuka! You know that isn't true!"  
  
"So? Since when has logic ever worked when Shinji's involved! GOD! Why am I even bothering to talk about HIM!" she flung herself from the chair and stormed off to her room.  
  
Misato quirked her eyebrow up as sounds of rustling clothes and hurried movements drifted from Asuka's open door. A moment later she raised her other eyebrow as she saw her red haired ward rush out dressed in a full- length brown leather trenchcoat, carrying a red umbrella in her hand.  
  
"And where are you going?" Misato asked, noticing her other hand hiding a pair of hiking boots.  
  
"Out. To Hikari's."  
  
"I thought she was on vacation?" she slyly asked.  
  
"The mall. Ja," came the frigid reply before the door opened and Asuka walked out.  
  
Misato smiled. "Worked better than I thought it would."  
  
"Warrk?"  
  
She looked down and smiled before accepting the outstretched beer in Pen Pen's flipper. Almost in unison they popped their respective tabs and began speed drinking.  
  
"YYEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"  
  
"Waaaarrrrrrkkkk!"  
  
The skies grew darker. And the rain fell harder.  
  
***  
  
Shinji sighed as he dropped in his fare. Several people looked sympathetically at the wet boy. Others subtly shifted away from him as water dripped off his jacket. Seeing one girl, around his age and not bad looking either, cringe away like that sent daggers through his heart.  
  
'Am I so worthless that people can see it? Is it not enough that people who know me call me worthless? No, of course not. God would love to see me suffer...me. The great Third Child. Killer of Angels.'  
  
He winced slightly as his leg bashed into a seat, hard. But he held his teeth together. Pain was something he had been forced to overcome in his time. It wasn't even that painful, compared to other times...  
  
Like the fourth...and the fifth.  
  
The trees moved by.  
  
He started recalling details about his flight from NERV after the fourth. How he slipped away in the dead of night. How he had apologized to Misato. How he had wandered sleeplessly through the imposing city of steel and concrete.  
  
He wasn't sure how but he ended up on a cliff side above Tokyo-3. Conveniently located so that he had a clear view of the imprint his Eva had made in the mountainside earlier that week. Even with the mists that morning he could clearly make out the exact spot where Kensuke and Toji knelt, cowering underneath his mighty monstrosity.  
  
'Not so mighty after all,' Shinji bitterly recalled another rainy day like this. A day filled with pain and anguish for his already perilous mind.  
  
"Asuka."  
  
A few people looked up and back at him. They only saw his tears fall, or it may have been residual water running from his hair. They ignored him. And he ignored them.  
  
'You do this so much...ignore everything and hope the problem gets solved for you. You never could face down anything...anyone. Until it meant someone else would die or get hurt. But I always end up hurting somebody by trying to help...Kaasan, I wish you were here to help me.'  
  
The bus slowed. Shinji stood from his seat and got into the line of people crowding to get off. Most of the people went further into the city.  
  
Shinji went to a city...but not the city of the living.  
  
***  
  
Knock, Knock, Knock.  
  
"Coming! I wonder who it is?"  
  
Kensuke Aida paused his AMV right at the height of its song and stood from his computer. His legs and backside tingling with the unexpected movement. His arms swung gently in the darkened interior of his room as he quickly shuffled out of his room and headed for the front door.  
  
"I wonder if Tousan forgot his key again?" the boy asked as he brushed his hair away from his eyes. "Hmn, need to clean my glasses again..."  
  
Then he opened his door. And nearly slammed it shut again.  
  
For the past year he had suffered mightily at the hands of his proclaimed Red Devil from Hell. But he always had Toji or Shinji there to suffer the brunt of her assaults. Leaving him totally out of her angry fits. It had been several months since she went into her coma, and only a few since she had woken up. It was the first time he had seen her in nearly a quarter of a year.  
  
And there was no Toji here to protect him...and definitely no Shinji.  
  
'Shit,' came to his mind first. But then he quickly noticed her eyes. He was good at reading peoples emotions through their eyes. Especially if they didn't take care to conceal their thoughts. Asuka usually had been a blue- steel door. Now...she was ice clear.  
  
"Come in?" he weakly offered, stretching out one of his scarred arms. A souvenir from another past...one that he wished he could forget entirely.  
  
Asuka nodded, noticing the dozen or so white lines that weaved in an out along his forearm. She stepped inside, letting her curt remark dissipated in her mind as she closed her umbrella. She left it next to her shoes and looked up to find Kensuke gesturing her into a doorway.  
  
"Can I get you some tea?" if his friends were here and if she was acting her usual self: he would have been unmerciful in his comments. But not now. Something was going on.  
  
Something ominous. It has to be Shinji.  
  
"Yeah, I guess...so."  
  
The clouds should have told him that today was going to be a bad day. He wasn't as good with weather as he was with eyes though. Kensuke rapidly made some instant tea. He hoped that she wouldn't chew him out for his choice.  
  
'Then again, she might like it,' he fervently hoped. "Here."  
  
Asuka graciously took the cup of steaming tea and gave it an appraising look. It wasn't the usual green tea that Shinji made and Misato ruined. And it wasn't Oolong tea either; the color was much darker than that. She watched Kensuke as he sipped the hot brew and then shrugged.  
  
'He isn't dead yet...' was all she could think before she sipped on the drink. The steam felt wonderful on her cold cheeks. And the drink was bitter...very bitter. Her eyes widened as her taste buds instantly recognized the distinctive taste of Earl Grey.  
  
"It's expensive to get, but I tend to indulge my habits headlong," Kensuke said as he drank again. "So, I know that you didn't come here to get a cup of tea...though you look like you needed it. What's up?"  
  
Asuka dropped her eyes to the cup, staring deeply at her wavy reflection, "Shinji's run away for the day."  
  
Kensuke coughed a bit as his tea went down a wrong pipe and he set down his cup. "Again? But I thought..oh, he probably didn't make breakfast. Well, today is that day..." he wistfully ended.  
  
Asuka felt a surge of impatience at the boy as he glanced out a window at the outside gloom.  
  
"Dammit does everybody know its his birthday but ME?" she angrily gulped a large amount of tea down.  
  
"Toji and Hikari probably don't either."  
  
"Then how does an idiot like you find out?" she managed not to shout at the boy. 'Hacking I'll wager,' Asuka privately imagined.  
  
"I celebrated it with him a year ago," Kensuke levelly replied. "He did wander into my campsite y'know...well, it was an early celebration...if even that."  
  
"How do you mean?" Asuka set her cup down, her drink nearly gone.  
  
"He only told me about it in a note. Handed it to me as he was taken away...still have it somewhere-" he stood and walked out of the room. Asuka waited impatiently as Kensuke shuffled through several binders before finding the correct one and removing its contents.  
  
"Here it is," he handed the near pristine letter to the red head. She barely refrained from snatching it out of his scarred hand.  
  
Kensuke...thank you for letting me have some food last night. And thank you for letting me stay with you. You may think nothing of this but it is probably the best thing anyone has done for me near my birthday...if you're wondering why I mention it, today is my birthday.... here they come.  
  
Shinji Ikari. Age 14.  
  
"He was going to slip it under my pillow and leave before dawn," Kensuke explained, once more sitting and drinking his tea. "Apparently he finished just in time for the Section 2 agents to pick him up. Need to find out how he avoided them for four days-"  
  
"Kensuke..." Asuka softly growled at the boy, cutting the ramble short.  
  
"So, you want to find him do you?"  
  
He could almost giggle to himself as Asuka's eyes went wide and her head snapped up and around. Her gaze stopped him though, that steel wall was up again. This time it had weapons on it.  
  
Yet he opened the can, now he had to release the worms, "You have very few reasons to come see me. I'd imagine you rather plucking out your hairs one by one rather then coming to chat with me about Shinji's past."  
  
"Who asked you anyway?" Asuka feebly defended herself. Kensuke snorted in amusement.  
  
"Please, I saw it the moment you walked in. Now, when did he leave?"  
  
Asuka continued to stare daggers at the boy as he stood and walked over to a hanging map of Tokyo-3 and the surrounding areas. After a few moments of silence she finally relented.  
  
"Near seven this morning."  
  
Kensuke glanced at his watch.  
  
10:38 a.m.  
  
"Well, he has had enough time to see Tokyo-3 from his lookout...so he's probably visiting the city by now."  
  
"How the hell am I gonna find that idiot in Tokyo-3! In this weather too!" Asuka stood and walked up beside the sandy haired boy.  
  
"No, wrong city."  
  
Asuka followed his finger as it came to a rest half a mile outside the city limits.  
  
Tokyo-3 Graveyards.  
  
"He should be visiting right now."  
  
"How would you know?" she turned away from the map and glared out the window, unhappy memories about her own family surfacing in the black recesses of her mind.  
  
"He did the same thing that day back in April...I went with him. He didn't need to be alone in his condition."  
  
"April? I was still in my coma," she thought, anxiously gnawing her left pinkie. "Where is he going after that?"  
  
"He should catch a bus and head off to this mountain," his index trailed across the city to a mountain close by to the school's emergency shelter. "He went there and looked at the scar his Eva made during the Fourth's attack..." Kensuke left out what Shinji talked about doing up there. "If you want to catch up to him you should take bus 221 and take it until the Osagura stop. Get off and get on a trail that leads up to the top. They were putting up a travelers rest so you might find him underneath it...otherwise look on the other side of the railing."  
  
"What? Why?" Asuka turned around to see Kensuke writing something out on a piece of paper. He wrote in English so Asuka would understand it easier. Even after a year her kanji was still bad.  
  
"..."  
  
"Kensuke. Why should I look on the other side?" her voice, calm and pleasant up to now, went hard and cold.  
  
"...Better for him to tell you than me."  
  
Asuka took the offered instructions and stood for a moment. Staring at the nerd as he placed his hands in his pockets. After a moment the boy shifted and spoke again.  
  
"Aren't you going to go see him?"  
  
"Yeah...thanks," she cautiously replied.  
  
"If you think that I'm going to blackmail you for this think again. I only do that when the others are around," he waved a hand dismissively at her and gestured to the door.  
  
"Besides, if you did I wouldn't do it anyway. Even simple things for you become perverted hell spawned machinations," Asuka sardonically replied, vividly remembering his other 'schemes'.  
  
Kensuke gave a slight chuckle at that and sighed, 'Besides, having this go on the webpage will be so much more rewarding.' He mentally chuckled with that thought.  
  
"Goodbye Asuka. Good luck in finding him." he shouted to her as she ran out the door and down the street.  
  
'Good luck...the both of you.'  
  
The door closed. And the rain poured.  
  
***  
  
He walked slowly through the black obelisks. It was a feeling of lethargy that made his pace fall, a feeling of non-belonging in this city of the dead. But as he neared the last row, he left that feeling behind. Instead he replaced it with one of happiness, contentment.  
  
Righteousness.  
  
"Hello Tousan...its been a while, hasn't it?"  
  
The stone remained silent. The rain whispered softly in Shinji's ear.  
  
"When I last did this on my birthday...I met you at Kaasan's tomb. I'm sure you need no memory of mine for that day...that was four years ago."  
  
He fell silent again.  
  
"And I still can't let go of my want for your attention...and I can't release my hate for you."  
  
He scowled at the unmoving black rock, then turned and walked down three tombstones.  
  
"Hey Ayanami...its me, Shinji. We never really had time to talk...did we? I wish now that I could have talked to you some more...before you died. I never really understood why that happened to you," Shinji knelt and ran his hands over her name. "Ritsuko said it was some kind of side effect with your clone...but...but I still didn't understand why you had to die. In truth Ayanami, you were probably the only one who even attempted to understand me without changing me...I miss you. Just like I miss Kaasan... just like I miss Karou," His watch beeped as the hour changed and he briefly considered glancing down. "I have to go now Rei, though I may be back next month or so to visit you again. Goodbye."  
  
The rain slackened off for a moment as the slight boy stood and gazed a moment longer at the two headstones. His eyes welled up with unshed tears as he realized what was missing, but he didn't want to re-bury his mother again in a false tomb. That would have been too painful for him to do.  
  
Especially since he was alone. With no one to turn to.  
  
No one.  
  
His back faded in the distance, and the rain picked up as he moved for a particular bus station down the road. The 221 would take him quickly to Osagura and then a narrow footpath would bring him all the way to the top.  
  
Completing his journey through his memories.  
  
His nightmares.  
  
One more stop.  
  
But not the rain's.  
  
***  
  
Asuka shook her umbrella, vainly attempting to free some of the water trapped on its slick surface. She closed it soon after and stepped into the bus itself, paying her fare and moving towards the rear. She didn't know where the route was going after this stop. But she trusted Kensuke insofar as to follow his directions to the letter...then again, maybe she was just desperate enough to find Shinji that she followed the directions.  
  
But it didn't matter.  
  
The bus started moving.  
  
"Next Stop: Outskirts in Najinika district. Outskirts of Najinika," the driver intoned.  
  
Several people shifted in their seats, their eyes drawn to the somber mood outside. A few gathered their possessions, preparing to step out once more into that dreary downpour. Asuka just sighed and wondered where Shinji was at the moment.  
  
'I wonder if he's already gotten to that mountain already?' she studied a map nearby and saw that it would be at least five more stops before her's came up. 'Probably took it already...I guess.'  
  
She frowned and absently daydreamed about the possibilities of Shinji getting on while she was on the bus. She imagined several scenarios: Him turning around and getting off, her following him and having a confrontation...her first daydream put them at odds and ended in a brutal fistfight. Her mind quickly shuffled that one out of the way. The next put them in the same scenario but ended with her in his arms.  
  
'Possibly...but in his mood, doubtful,' she gave a wan smile as she imagined him tougher, smarter, and manlier than she knew him to be.  
  
Another fantasy played out with him getting on and instantly coming back to sit with her, to talk with her, to hold her-  
  
"Mien Gott!" she quietly mouthed, stunned at what she was thinking. 'Maybe Shinji's friends wore off on me...no, then I would have stupidity along with the pervertedness...'  
  
She blushed at what she just said to herself and quickly checked to see if anyone else noticed her. They ignored her and everyone else alike.  
  
Apathy ran like water today.  
  
'But, is it what I want to do with him? I don't know...I don't know..' she sighed and leaned her head against her side window. Noting the bleak look of the skyline the trees made.  
  
The bus slowed.  
  
"Outskirts of Najinka. Outskirts."  
  
The door opened and several people stood and stepped off. Only one got on. A boy in rain-slicked leather jacket, his hair a matted mess of soggy brown. With one scar above his eye.  
  
Asuka felt her breath catch. It was him...her fantasies replayed rapidly in her mind, but this was the here...the now.  
  
Shinji saw Asuka immediately. How could he miss her? Red hair, blue eyes, perfect face...and a great body to boot. Not too many of those to be found in Tokyo-3. But doubt and fear ran through his mind as he made his way back to her seat.  
  
'Why is she here? Did she come looking for me?' his hope sparked and rose, only to be crushed by another thought. 'No, if she did it was probably Misato ordering her out of the house.'  
  
Then he was beside her.  
  
"Mind if I sit?"  
  
Shinji's voice was flat, hollow. Asuka shuddered, shaking her head at the same moment to hide that bodily reaction. She unconsciously found herself moving closer to the boy as he sat heavily in the psuedo leather seat. Water dripped haphazardously off of his body and landed in various places. Some landed on her and she almost brushed it off but held off for some reason.  
  
Finally, she asked a question.  
  
"Where did you get that jacket?" indeed, she had never seen it before. He had never worn anything like it at all. Shinji winced inwardly at the question.  
  
"I...I found it, a long time ago."  
  
Asuka watched his head droop down low and tried to change the subject.  
  
"So, how old are you today?" she cursed her lack of ready questions but felt this was better than her first.  
  
"How old do I look?" Shinji replied, lifting his head and staring at her face.  
  
She knew the answer to her question of course, but his own made her think...study his face instead. He was a mass of small wrinkles, crow's feet spreading from the corners of his eyes, tired eyes that have seen more than they should have had at his age. The scar that seemed like only another wrinkle added to his tired face...but it was the eyes that did it, the eyes that changed her perspective on his looks. Even Kaji didn't have that look about him, that look of haunted maturity.  
  
"Older than you should."  
  
Shinji smiled a bit, then dropped the smile and looked out the window. Or so it seemed to Asuka. They rode out the rest of the trip accompanied only by the sound of the rain.  
  
Which fell steady and true.  
  
***  
  
"How did you find me?"  
  
Asuka walked next to Shinji under her umbrella. The pair trudging up a muddy path to the top of his last stop, wet and cold but still determined to finish. She stopped for a moment, biting her lip as Shinji continued on in the rain without her.  
  
"Hey wait! Don't you want to stay dry?"  
  
"How?"  
  
Asuka felt her mood for teasing drop and she turned to face the front, "Kensuke told me."  
  
Shinji stopped this time and she with him. Her eyes reflected innocence as the boy beside her let his jaw hang in disbelief at that little revelation.  
  
Then he laughed.  
  
"-God, I wonder what he made yo-you do-" he continued to laugh sporadically and the pair started walking again. Asuka smiled with Shinji, happy to make the boy laugh for a change.  
  
'Happiness, I'm happy when he smiles...when he laughs,' Asuka frowned for a moment as she considered that insight. '...Do I? Can I? With hi-...no, not that. Will he though? Can he?' her inner voice became a slight whisper in her mind, '...should he?'  
  
Shinji saw the darkness furrow Asuka's brow, but let her be. He had his own dark thoughts. Though they were slowly becoming fewer.  
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
"Because I am."  
  
"Asuka, why are you here with me?" he stressed the point.  
  
"Does it matter? You do get to walk with me through the forest you realize. I wouldn't do that for just anyone," Asuka blinked at that sudden admission, then started cursing Freud and his stupid theories about the human psyche.  
  
Shinji caught the admission but decided to save it, "You didn't have to though. Why?"  
  
Asuka groaned in frustration, "It's your birthday you idiot! No one should spend their birthday alone in the rain!"  
  
Shinji inched slightly out from the umbrella, letting the rain hit him on the head, "But the rain doesn't bother me...I like rain."  
  
"Well I don't!" Asuka nearly shouted at him, closing the distance between their bodies and covering Shinji with the red nylon again.  
  
"How did you know?"  
  
"About the birthday? Misato. Really, the stupid things you've done today amaze me. First you leave in the morning to go muck about in the rain. Then you goto God know's where to do God know's what with God know's who!"  
  
Asuka noticed the slight winces as she finished her rant at the boy. She knew instinctively that a nerve had been struck.  
  
"Just what have you been doing anyway?"  
  
Shinji didn't answer. Instead he continued walking in silence.  
  
"Shinji?" her voice lowered.  
  
"We're here."  
  
Indeed they were. The view, though opaque in some points, was astounding. The wisps of clouds that engulfed the top of one mountain was simply breathtaking. Asuka could faintly make out the Evangelion scar from a year ago but just barely. Instead she took in the surroundings and the great view of Tokyo-3 she had from afar.  
  
And true to Kensuke's word, there was a traveler's rest nearby. Which she promptly headed over to. Asuka went three steps before noticing Shinji still staring at the mountainside. With a growl and a frown she stomped back over and grabbed his arm.  
  
"Hey! Wait a minute!"  
  
"Shut up Shinji! You've played in the rain long enough."  
  
"Who the hell said you were in charge of my actions!" Shinji shouted, breaking free of her grasp just as they went underneath the shelter. He stood glowering fiercely at her back while she closed her umbrella.  
  
"No one," came a soft almost caring voice. "But having your lungs fill with water until you drown isn't the best of ways to go."  
  
"I know that," his eyebrows knotted together. He gave a humph of frustration and turned to face the small cascade of water pouring off the roof. His arms crossed angrily before his soaked jacket.  
  
"Shinji?"  
  
That voice made him drop his anger like a dead body. It was caring this time. Loving. Like a mother's voice.  
  
"Shinji, why are you out here today? Why didn't you stay at home?"  
  
Asuka sat on the bench and stared at her roommate. She continued watching him as he walked forward and leaned against a supporting post.  
  
"Because I always do it like that..."  
  
"Why?" Asuka leaned forward and put her elbows on her kneecaps.  
  
"Asuka...I lived an unhappy life for fifteen years...mother dead,"  
  
'His too?' came her thoughts unbidden.  
  
"Father abandoned me, Aunt and Uncle uncaring towards me, my teacher the same...I never got any birthday presents. Only money to get me something for myself...never have used it either."  
  
"Never?"  
  
"No. No gifts, no anything...except my jacket. It's the one thing I do have."  
  
Asuka almost stood and rushed the boy then and there as she watched him run his hands along the sleeves, feeling the smooth texture as they did so.  
  
"How did you get it?" she sat upright now, wondering about his mysterious past.  
  
"I was...eight. It was rough for me, living with two relatives who didn't care any at all for me,"  
  
'I know what that's like,' Asuka silently added.  
  
"The one joy I had was rummaging through their attic. It was full of things to occupy my time...I found my cello there, and the music that prompted them to make me take lessons for it...I also found this there. It was stuffed into a corner and covered with dust. At first I didn't want it, ignored it. But first I searched its pockets...and I found this."  
  
Shinji reached into one pocket and pulled free a laminated card. It was small and held only a few lines of printed text in kanji. But as she took it from the boy, who sat next to her, she realized why it seemed so important to him.  
  
Ikari Yui  
  
Lieutenant  
  
Gherin Code Clearance Level Blue  
  
Project Evangelion Pilot  
  
"Its possibly the only thing my father hadn't destroyed in his crusade to rid the world of her presence...the only thing I have left of Kaasan. She was so kind and caring to me...unlike my bastard father."  
  
"Shinji..." a tear fell from her eye.  
  
And Shinji Ikari, now aged fifteen years old, could not believe that he was watching the energetic, self-helped, German Eva pilot cry in front of him.  
  
"...Shinji...you have no idea how similar we are...at least your memories of your mother are happy ones though..." finally she couldn't take it. Asuka cracked. The rain, her memories, her feelings, everything: broke free and ran down her face.  
  
"Asuka..."  
  
She continued crying; crying because she knew there was one thing that Shinji had that she would never have.  
  
Shinji would always remember how kind and loving his mother was...all she had was the room and the rope. That's all she could remember about her mother...she couldn't even remember if her mother was even kind to anything other than that damn doll she had...and after everything she had been through, the armor fell apart. It suddenly found that it could not support itself any longer with its original basis...it had become too fragile, too unstable.  
  
And Asuka cried, sobbing as she realized their fundamental difference, their unintended boundary that would probably always separate them from their mutually similar pasts.  
  
But as she cried she felt a warmth engulf her, wrap around her and comfort her. It was Shinji, there with a hug and a warm embrace. One more thing she never got from her mother.  
  
"Asuka..Asuka..please, you shouldn't cry," he surprised himself with his own actions and words.  
  
'Great,' he thought. 'I'm so depressed that I'd commit suicide while trying to comfort someone who hates me...I'm really fucked up.'  
  
But instead of the expected deathblow, instead of heaven's sweet call; he felt her arms slid underneath his own and found the hug returned.  
  
The pair remained that way for several minutes, Asuka's tears finally drying and Shinji's anxiousness as he awaited the usual punches or slaps increasing by the moment.  
  
"Shinji?"  
  
He almost flinched but regained control at the last moment and answered, softly stroking her auburn hair at the same time, "Yes Asuka?"  
  
"I didn't get you a present you know."  
  
"That's okay...I'm used to it."  
  
"Wait a minute, I'm not finished," she said, gently removing herself from his grasp and wiping her face clean with her hand.  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Asuka mock glared at him, but her puffy-eyed visage just made Shinji chuckle. After another glare Asuka joined him.  
  
"I've really got to get you to stop doing that one day."  
  
"Sorry, it's my nature," Shinji said, leaning across and draping his arm across her shoulder. She tensed for one second and then leaned into him a bit, 'Still surprising myself, maybe being a year older makes me more comfortable in situations like this...'  
  
"Shinji," Asuka cut through his thoughts. "I do have a present for you though."  
  
"You don't have to-"  
  
Asuka did the surprising this time, cutting him off with a well-placed kiss that effectively silenced the boy. Except for his slight 'mrrphph' afterwards. Shinji relaxed instantly, enjoying the moment because he knew it would only last a moment. Asuka was kissing...kissing him. And he wasn't being used like the last time.  
  
It was good.  
  
No...it was great.  
  
Asuka finally broke the kiss and leaned back, "Not bad Shinji...learned some tips from the Internet?"  
  
"Back into teasing mode," he thought. "No, Kensuke has enough magazines to handle that..." he waited a moment as Asuka's eyebrow twitched, then a thought came to mind. "And Misato was so willing to practice with me-"  
  
He cringed a bit as her fist impacted against his shoulder, but it wasn't too hard...it could have been harder.  
  
"IDIOT! I don't want to know about your sex life!" Asuka smiled a bit, then stood up and retrieved her umbrella. "Now come on, the rain is starting to give out and I want to get back home!"  
  
"Jawol Mien Führer!" Shinji teasingly shouted out, sounding eerily like Kensuke for a moment. Asuka growled at him before grabbing his arm and pulling him along down the hill. Soon he regained his footing and they set off down the hill.  
  
But this time, Asuka wrapped her arm around the crook of his. They both glanced at each other and smiled. For the first time in a long time, they were happy.  
  
They were happy together.  
  
The rain slowed. Then stopped.  
  
And the sun parted the clouds.  
  
  
  
  
  
Authors Notes: I finish this today on my birthday: August 16, 2002. Today I am 17, although I don't count it as such until 9:00 p.m. because that's when I was born back in 1985. This fic was inspired by my own personal fight against depression that comes around this time of the year, and by that fic called Another Rainy Day Evangelion. I think that it's the fic where Shinji and Asuka just walk along the street and get into a fight, ending with Asuka running off and Shinji standing in the rain with no shoes on. For those who will say that rain is depressing: I'm just weird. I love the rain because gray is my favorite color and I love the sound of water hitting my roof. It's a great sound to go to sleep to in my opinion. I will say that all OOC ness you detect is my design and my intent. As well as all changes to the storyline and some of the plot. If you still want to complain, please do so! I love reading flames about my work, no not a masochist, and I also love reading constructive criticism. I may decide to continue this by going further along with the story, or by doing birthdays for each of the individual Eva characters. If you want either one please post it in the Review section. If you don't want it, please tell me so in the Review section. Arigato gozaimasu. The Seldon Planner, 17 and counting. 


	3. Forgivness of a Pilot

This will be put up as the first chapter, however, in the sequence of the stories this chapter comes in between the Never-To-Be-Finished Second Part of "Father of a Pilot", and the original story that spawned this collection of one-shots, "Birthday of a Pilot"  
  
The following story is based upon a true event.  
  
Seldon.  
  
The Seldon Planner Presents:  
  
An Etherworlds Production  
  
~~~~"Forgiveness of A Pilot"~~~~  
  
It was a cold day, that day in Japan. The rains swept down from the mountain highlands and descended through the high-cliffed valleys to the sea and the cities that proliferated the shores of Earth and Water. Dark clouds rolled overhead and thunder boomed as the gods of fire and sky clashed their shield and spear together in a titanic battle that never ended. Bolts of fury stabbed out at the ground below, seeking and searching for something to latch on to and punish with undirected hatred. Lightning rods were their only receptacles, and they were a foe almost as hardened as the two gods themselves.  
  
Shinji watched all this with a mute fascination as he waited to catch the 7:20 bus to a local shopping market. Well, then again, he wasn't so much waiting for a bus, as three similar buses had already passed him. Rather, he was watching the Heaven above pour down its life to the Earth below.  
  
'What is rain really?' Shinji wondered to himself as he stretched out a palm from beneath the Traveler's Rest to catch a driplet or three. 'Is it so simple as man says it is? Is it really just the condensation of the oceans and other water that had evaporated into the air? Or is it something grander?  
  
'Is it the blood of thousands of men and beasts? Fighting ever-together on a plain of night-and-day? Was that how life began? The gods of Heaven and the Oni of Hell fighting together and drenching existence so thoroughly with their potent blood that we, a genuine mistake, a being capable of both good and bad, arose?'  
  
A roaring noise startled Shinji, who drew his dripping hand back and hastily dried it off on his already sodden coat. The 7:20 had arrived, neatly packed with people in both the seats and the aisle. Shinji clambered on and swiped his NERV ID into the charge slot. A blue chit twindled out and he tore it off. Only one handle remained, so he took that and held tight.  
  
The bus driver shut the doors and with a bare glance to his right he sped off. Shinji's hand came close to slipping from the handle but held on, somehow, a small divine grace from the potent clear-blood that had fallen from a-high perhaps.  
  
'The good and the bad, yes, man is quite capable of doing both.' Though, to Shinji, it seemed that humanity had more bad to offer to him than good right then. And why shouldn't it? Everything he'd seen in his time at Tokyo-3 had just been worse and worse and worse.   
  
Touji's sister, then Touji himself. Rei dying. Rei returning, but not the same. Never the same. The Sea of Guf, a place where the only thing any sane man could say to the frightening truths held within it is: "The Horror. The Horror." Kaji, poor Mr. Kaji. Misato, more Misato than Kaji as he'd only painfully learned later in his life. Asuka. She'd only awakened from her coma two months ago. Shinji had taken over care of her from the hospital, Asuka didn't like hospitals. Misato was too busy reforming the JSSDF with NERV to even eat much these days, and grief for Kaji took even what little time she had left.  
  
So Shinji brought Asuka home. And Shinji took care of her. The atrophy of her muscles had been horrific, "A side effect of the LCL," Lieutenant Ibuki had told him, "Or so I believe." That was something to wonder about there. Shinji remembered asking himself, 'If the LCL did that to Asuka now, what would it do to us later in our life?'  
  
He would never learn, but others would.  
  
Then there was his Father. Always, always, always his Father. Everything went right back to his Father. Everything. 'How could he be so evil?' he asked himself one night when Asuka was asleep and Misato was away. When only he and Pen Pen were awake out on the patio to watch the moon rise up and the stars twinkle into existence.  
  
"How?" Shinji had asked aloud. "How could he do all the things he did. How could he order children to face their own certain death and the death of all the World and not give a damn at the end of the day? How could he abandon me? And...how could he still do what he did?"  
  
Pen Pen held silent on that. Somehow, Pen Pen wasn't exactly sure how he knew, but he did know that somehow Gendo Ikari did at the end of his life the one thing that no one would have expected him to do.   
  
He sacrificed himself, and saved his son.  
  
Pen Pen knew also that Shinji was having a difficult time reconciling that with the ingrained image of his father that eleven years had etched into the stone of his psyche. He knew that Shinji, even six months after his father's death, refused to even tolerate the mention of his name. He knew that some nights, Shinji went to bed crying over his lost mother and his dead father. But he also knew that forgiveness would only come from Shinji at the end of a long, hard, and dark tunnel.  
  
But Shinji did not know those things. Shinji only knew that his Father was a greedy, selfish man who's only kindness to him was that he gave his life so that Shinji could rescue Asuka. Shinji couldn't see his Father's sacrifice for what it really was, he just saw that his Father was protecting his "Precious Pilots", the only ones who could make his machines of death and war move.  
  
Machines that had blood on their hands.   
  
Blood that was also on his hands.  
  
Shinji closed his eyes and sagged against his arm. 'No, no!' he shouted inside the bleak void of his being. 'STOP! I don't want to remember! STOP IT! SHUT UP!'  
  
...murderer...  
  
'SHUTUP!' Shinji screeched.  
  
...Murderer...  
  
'No! He would have killed me! They all would have killed me and Asuka! Everyone would have died!  
  
Does that make it different? Kaoru died the way he chose, yes, that is true. But what about the others? All those hundreds of others? The ones who died by your hand? The ones who ran from you with tears in their eyes and family in their minds? What about them?  
  
'SHUTUP! SHUTUPSHUTUP!'  
  
WHAT ABOUT THEM! The ones who died running away from the devil that came roaring and screeching out of the dark abyss that was the ruins of NERV? The ones who fled at the very sight of you into the hills and under the trees? The ones who exploded into clouds of misting crimson and devolved into lumps of crushed gore beneath your feet? WHAT ABOUT THEM! Don't you fucking run away from me! You stand and answer! What about them?  
  
Did you ever think that they had wives, daughters...sons? You never had a Father. You never WILL. Kaji died, and he wasn't really a father to you now was he? No. He was your brother, at best. At best! Misato can't be your father, for obvious reasons I hope. No one else could be your Father except one man.  
  
But he's dead now, isn't he? Can't be a father if you're dead. Can you?  
  
Just like all those men you crushed. They're just as dead as your Father. And their children? What about them now? Now that they don't have fathers either, what about them? Do they grow up to be a second generation of you? Of Asuka?...of Rei?  
  
'Leave them out of this! You fucking leave them out of this!'  
  
Why?   
  
'Because they didn't kill those men! They never had that choice! They couldn't make that choice!'  
  
That's right. They couldn't. But you could. You could.  
  
'...and I did.' Shinji let his head drop to the crook of his elbow. Tears for the unmourned dead rolled into his eyes.   
  
Yes. Unmourned. There were too many bodies to pick through after you went on your little "Crusade" against the men who brutally slaughtered your "Father". They couldn't pick anyone apart from the other because you smashed them all together into one neat, nice, pretty little pile. The rosters for the JSSDF aren't even accurate with all the Angel attacks going on, and Seele put in hundreds of men under false names. Unmourned dead indeed.  
  
'I mourn for them.'  
  
For once, the voice was quite.  
  
The bus was slowing, Shinji straightened and wiped a hand at his moist eyes, hoping that he didn't redden them further by aggravating his puffy eyelids. No one seemed to notice. No one seemed to care. Old, young, middle-aged, they didn't look up from their own little world. Why would they?  
  
They had their own problems to solve. They had their own dirty little sins to deal with.   
  
They all had no time for the issues of morality in a fifteen-year-old boy.  
  
They had no time for anyone they didn't know.  
  
The bus pulled to the stop, Shinji waited at the door and then stepped out into the rain. It was slackening a bit, the lightning and thunder had slowly drifted off into the distance. Even so, the marketplace was full of shoppers maneuvering this way and that through what was only ghostly shell of Tokyo-3's remains.  
  
Shinji dug deeply into his pocket, feeling the small sum of cash that was to be his means to purchasing food for both Asuka and he tonight. It was only a modest thing, but enough to get the rice, meat, and base that he needed. Even that was almost too much for Asuka to choke down, having been too long on IV's.  
  
Before, before what happened to her, she always complained about how she hated the lack of good, strong food in Japan. Now...now she gave him half-hearted praise whenever he managed to thin down the rice soup enough for her to swallow without too much pain.  
  
He did what he could.  
  
Shinji made his way through the stalls, brushing past the myriad peoples who's only concern was themselves and the small necessities of life which they had come to gather or had already bought, and slowly began to loose himself within that mentality.  
  
The World shrunk, until Shinji could see only that which was a foot ahead and to the sides. The noise, the stench, the lights, all vanished past that small block of prescience. Slowly he went to the rice stand, pushing through people when necessary, waiting politely when he could.   
  
It didn't matter really. Even the ones who received a harder-than necessary shove barely paid him any mind. Their own block of the world did not include the sense of touch, he rationalized. The rice was measured out and paid for, the smallest amount that was needed for tonight. The fish and base would be much, much more.  
  
"-Please? Somebody? Can somebody spare me a few notes? I only need a few, it would not be too bothersome. Anybody? Sir?"  
  
Shinji heard the voice and felt the tug on his sleeve. He turned, ready to correct the man and tell him that he was only a boy. A murdering boy. But, he didn't tell him.   
  
"Sir? Can you spare me a few notes? The monastery three blocks down has promised that they'll give people like me a place to stay, what with the weather and all, but they're asking for ninety notes at the door, and...well, sir, I've only got sixty-three. Could you please just spare me some notes to get inside? So I can get a warm place to sleep in and dry out my clothes? It's been awful for me, sir. I'm from Okinawa originally, much warmer a place than this, and I'm not used to these cold spells that you get up here. I'm very cold, sir, could you please just spare me some notes?"  
  
Shinji, who felt almost so close to crying that he was having to blink rapidly just to hold back the tears, nodded his head. "Sure. But first, I want you to come with me." Shinji took the man by the arm and gently led him through the crowd of people who'd been listening with deaf ears to the pleas and took him to a fast-serve cart.  
  
"Wait here," Shinji told the man, who rubbed his hands together and nodded, a curious look in his face and eyes.  
  
Shinji stepped up to the cart and asked for the biggest cup of ramen that he could get with moneys left over. He took that, and the change, and went back out to where the man who'd begged money from him was waiting. He pressed both the ramen and the money into the man's trembling hands. Then he counted out a smaller sum from the remaining money he'd been saving for the fish and broth and put that into his pocket. The rest went to the man again.  
  
"You take this to the monastery. And you eat that on the way."  
  
"Oh, thank you sir! You..." the man choked, his bearded face twisting as inexpressible words of thankfulness rose to his mind and misted his eyes with tears. "A kind Buddha has sent you to find me sir. Thank you, thank you, thank you."  
  
Shinji nodded and clasped the man on the shoulder, pulling him into a hug. Soon he let go and backed away. "A kind Buddha did not send me to you, but you to me."  
  
Shinji turned from the man then, and walked back into the ever-shifting crowd of people who'd never even noticed what had happened before them. The man raised his hand, the words on his lips to ask the kind boy what his name was. They died as Shinji vanished into the crowd.  
  
"Maybe, a kind Buddha sent both of us to the other." The man teared up, feeling a hot wash roll down his cheek. The foul weather soon hastened his step away though, and so the man went. Eating the ramen as he walked for the monastery.  
  
He didn't even care when it dripped, steaming and delicious, onto his tattered JSSDF uniform.  
  
***  
  
Shinji walked into the door of his home and stood there for a moment. The door shut automatically behind him, cutting off the light sounds of the rain that had become nothing more than a gentle misting. Alone, in the silence, Shinji heard the voice return to him.  
  
You think that one kind act will forgive you bloody sins of past? You think that saving that man's life for one day, ONE DAY! That you are forgiven for the deaths of hundreds?  
  
Shinji waited for a long time before he answered, and this is what he said: 'No. It does not forgive me. But it does forgive him.'  
  
The voice was silent again.  
  
"Shinji! Stop wasting time and get in the kitchen! I'm starving away in here and you're standing at the damn door watching me die! Where the hell were you anyway? Were you jerking off at some magazine stand you found? I swear to God that if you were and you cook my food before washing your fifthly hands I'll break your neck in two! WELL?! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU STANDING AROUND FOR? You want a miracle to happen for you so that the food cooks itself and you don't even have to lift a finger?! I swear to God that you are the most single-minded, selfish person I've ever known! Did you even care to think about MY situation HERE? Where I was STARVING!? Did you? Now get in there and cook for me damnit! If you ---" 


	4. Friends of a Pilot: Kensuke

Friends of a Pilot: Kensuke  
  
It is hard to imagine what they must have suffered. We will never truly know what they felt, in those moments of terror and agony. We can never experiance what they went through. But somehow: we must try to understand...and to pity them.  
  
For they suffered for us, they bled for us, and they fought for us.  
  
The world is a fine place, and worth fighting for.  
  
And they fought for it.  
  
  
  
Kensuke Aida wasn't what someone would imagine as a friend to the famous, or infamous depending on how you viewed them, Evangelion pilots. He was a quiet, short boy with thin glasses perched on a small nose that was set into a gaunt face. His sandy brown hair was an unusual trait that he had inherited from his mother, but that was the only feature about him that set him apart. But he knew the Evangelion pilots, he knew them from the beginning of the Children's Crusade, as he liked to call the war between mankind and the enigmatic beings known as the Angels. Yes, he knew them well.  
  
He never told anyone that he knew them personally though, but he couldn't resist telling one or two that he had met with each of the Pilots privately, and in person at least once. A small lie, since he had been Shinji Ikari and Toji Suzahara's best friend during the Crusade. And had been on even terms with the aloof Rei Ayanami for most of the time he had known her. Asuka...well, the two were more like friendly enemies, but they had finally calmed down and become civil...after their second year in high school.  
  
'High school...'  
  
That had been years ago. Back when he was still a snot-nosed military brat who had no clue as to the true horrors of war. He had wished for so long to be chosen as a candidate for the Evangelion program.  
  
And explosion rocked the ground, sending a shower of clumped, frozen soil and dirty snow high into the cold winter sky. Kensuke just tipped his head down over his lap, letting the clumps rain on his steel helmet with sharp, echoing pings and dinks.  
  
'Of course, I never knew about class 2-A until after the war...' he thought bitterly, his hands absently brushing over the black steel of his cold rifle.  
  
Class 2-A, NERV's pilot storage and checkpoint station inside the school. A masterful plan, all of those kids being candidates for the Eva program certainly simplified NERV's watchdog and propaganda problems. After all, a dead and anti-NERV pilot would more than likely hand the Geofront over to the Angels rather than fight against them. Of course, Shinji wasn't dead...but he was most definitely anti-NERV.  
  
A second explosion sounded next to the frozen dugout that Kensuke resided in. The spray once again rained down on his head and he never even noticed. He was so lost in the memories of his past that he didn't even hear his platoon sergeant creep up until the man rolled down into the foxhole.  
  
In an flash, Kensuke had his rifle up and leveled at the intruders head.  
  
"It's me Ken," the sergeant said, gesturing for the twenty year old man to lower his rifle. Kensuke gave a small smile and slammed the butt plate hard into the snow-covered floor of his foxhole. He could barely feel the round barrel in his hands, they were numb all the way up to his wrists.  
  
"We've got an armored unit moving into the area Ken, so expect at least one target to head up this way."  
  
Kensuke tiredly bent his neck one way, then the other; the pops of his bones were quickly covered up by the continual explosions both close by and far away.  
  
"The Russians are pushing this way?"  
  
His sergeant nodded, "Yeah, fucking perfect time for them to do it too. Half the boys have already put in for rotation home for their Christmas leave. A third of those have already left!" The man finished by spitting on the ground with a disgusted nod of his head. "I can't believe this shit..."  
  
Kensuke nodded, he wasn't one of those who had put in for Christmas leave. Where would he go anyway? Shinji was holed up somewhere in the mountains, hiding from his fans and haters alike. Toji and Hikari were married now and with a collection of kids, and he sure as hell didn't want to bother them at a time like this. Asuka...well, she was off commanding some forces in Germany most likely. And it wasn't like she would welcome him with open arms.  
  
His father had died...before he even graduated from high school.  
  
"Well, JDF-2 thinks that Arbie might begin the offensive any day now...the UN's Tenth Armor should be arriving later this night...what's the disposition of your squad? And where's Lieutenant Kaishi?"  
  
Kensuke looked at the man with tired, red-lined eyes for a long time before he answered. "You're looking at it's disposition, Sarge; Kaishi...died two hours ago."  
  
The sergeant looked at Kensuke, then poked his head up and scanned the nearby foxholes. Each one of them was rimmed with a line of black, churned earth and the dusky gray of burned powder. In one, he could faintly make out the line of a withered and twisted arm clutching the edge of it's foxhole...as if it was trying to still claw out of it's deathtrap.  
  
The sergeant dropped back down.  
  
Kensuke smiled at the man, he smiled a sick and deprived smile of one who was almost insane. As though he was dancing along the precipice of insanity, hopping along on one leg and trying to cartwheel along the side. He had stared into the abyss...and the abyss had stared back into him. His physical appearance wasn't too great either. He looked exhausted and hungry, cold, despite the thick layers of several army-issue cold weather covers and the assorted collection of socks that hung out of his pockets and around his neck. A ragged pair of strips hung from the outer sleeves of his upper-most jacket, looking for the entire world like they would just fall off like leaves in autumn. Behind him, a small arsenal of ammunition, rifles, and grenades were carefully lined out or stacked upright. Ready to use at a moments notice.  
  
"I've got their tags here," Kensuke said, his breath making a ragged cloud in the frigid air as his hands searched for the identifications. "Don't know if it'll do any good though...the bodies have been hit more than once."  
  
A ringing clatter sounded though the foxhole as Kensuke held them out to his sergeant. The older man took them without a flicker of an eyelash.  
  
"We'll send you some more men to hold this position," the sergeant calmly intoned. Kensuke nodded and reached deep within his thick clothes. He returned with a crumpled packet of cigarettes and a scratched and rusted lighter. Huddling as close to his cupped hands as possible, he tenderly flicked the striker. The flame danced and wavered as it burned the cigarettes' tip red-orange, a thick haze of smoke drifted from the corners of his mouth.  
  
The sergeant looked at him once and almost warned him...but held it back. 'He knows what he's doing.'  
  
Without another word, the sergeant left Kensuke's foxhole. Crawling back through the landscape of Hell. Kensuke puffed on his cigarette for a long time, somewhere in there...the shelling stopped.  
  
'It sure is a cold night...'  
  
~~~  
  
"GET DOWN! FIND SOME COVER!"  
  
~~~  
  
Kensuke plugged a few more shots across the barren plain of white snow. Though it wasn't white anymore; more like a mixed slush of black soil and red blood. Topped off by burning fuel and blackened machines of war. It was two days till Christmas...and here he was, shooting at men even as they shot back at him.  
  
No one ever knew who started this war. Perhaps it was a holdout of some remaining Seele council members, or maybe the Russians finally decided to test their industrial might against the world.  
  
Obviously, two World Wars with Germany on the losing side hadn't convinced everyone that this sort of thing was a bad idea.  
  
History is a lovely thing.  
  
But history was past, now was the present. And to think of the past in a present such as this is to sign your death warrant before the bullet even finds you.  
  
So Kensuke heaved himself up to the lip of his foxhole, and he almost emptied his ammunition clip at the advancing Russian troops. He hit more than one, he knew that for sure. But he couldn't stay up long to count; the tanks that the infantry were following made that impossible. Even as he ducked back down into the relative safety of his dugout, a section of earth nearby exploded upwards and outwards with a rush of hot gas and a hammering of earthen clods. All around him, men rose out of their similar foxholes and did much the same as he. They fired at the exposed infantry, only to quickly hide as the enemies tanks took an interest in them long enough to hammer them down with their cannons.  
  
'We're losing.'  
  
That's all Kensuke had time to think of as he yanked the pin out a grenade, just one more gone from his shrinking pile. He gave a grunt and a heave and propelled the small, baseball-sized explosive far out into the field of advancing Russians. A dull thud and sharp screams of surprise and pain was all he heard before a hail of fifty caliber peppered the edge of his dugout.  
  
Then he heard something that sent shivers through his already frozen body.  
  
The only thing you could describe it as: was a freight train being shot through the air.  
  
And it was headed at Kensuke.  
  
"SHIT!" he screamed out, throwing himself as far away from his ammunition stockpile as he could possibly get. Then, Hell found a new definition. The explosions seemed to overlap one another; their deafening rumbles barely pausing a half-second before the next sounded off. Debris, dirt, and dead bodies flew everywhere. Huge, billowing flames erupted from the unfortunate Russian armor that was hit by a stray round, the concussion from which sent their already scattered troops flying meters through the air.  
  
One of these landed in Kensuke's foxhole.  
  
"AAUGH!" he cried out, scrambling and scrabbling at his leather pistol holster. He was almost sure that he would die at any instant, that the Russian would regain his senses in a second and shoot him dead while he still struggled to free his weapon.  
  
With a cry of anguish, terror, and pure frustration: Kensuke wrenched the semi-automatic pistol free and whipped it around to cover the Russian. Kensuke stayed like that, breathing heavily as the sounds of freight trains still rained down around him. Staring, watching, looking...the dead Russian's sightless eyes gazed back at the cowering Kensuke. A small trickle of blood oozed from his nose.  
  
Kensuke dropped his arm, and threw his head back in a cry of despair.  
  
'I'm so sick of this, I'm sick of this war, I'm sick of this cold, I'm sick of all of this blood-'  
  
"I'M FUCKING SICK OF IT ALL!" he finally shouted.  
  
The explosions continued without pause.  
  
They cared little what their masters thought.  
  
~~~  
  
Kensuke peered through the dirty lenses of his binoculars. Scanning and searching for any sign of his enemies. The barren and torn wasteland around his position was littered with the last assault. The tanks still burned hot and bright from the attack earlier that morning, and the bodies still bled their now-cool blood. Huge craters of black and large splatters of bright red covered nearly every square inch of that field; what wasn't covered in broken machines or bodies that is. "Sarge! See anything?"  
  
Kensuke ignored the question, choosing instead to examine the line of trees that ran parallel to his row of foxholes. 'The attack came from there...so that's where they will be,' the binoculars dropped. Somewhere off to his right he heard the question being asked again.  
  
"No. I don't see anything corporal."  
  
He had received his re-enforcements earlier that morning, just in time for their first battle with the enemy. Yeah, replacements...kids mostly. Wet behind their ears and with about as much combat wisdom as a gopher. From what he understood: they had suffered over fifty percent casualties from that mornings assault.  
  
'Not good...not good at all...'  
  
Far off to the left, a man jumped out of his hole and started hauling ass over to Kensuke's position. Nothing was sent over to them yet...but the two positions would be noted. Of that, Kensuke was sure. In a few moments the man was hopping down into the hole and holding out a phone to Kensuke.  
  
"Company sir."  
  
Kensuke nodded and took the phone, "Kensuke, go."  
  
"Ken-...e're sending y-u a fe...tanks. There, that's got it good. They should be arriving in about an hour. I want you to keep them safe from enemy attack until Christmas for me okay?"  
  
"Sir?" Kensuke was bewildered. 'What the hell are these people thinking? If I leave them exposed out in this plain we'll get the shit shelled right out of us!'  
  
"You heard me Sergeant. We've got an operation planned for the twenty- fifth. Your orders are simple enough-"  
  
"Sir, I have no cover out here but what I dig for myself! If we put tanks up here then we'll get shelled and wiped out!"  
  
The radioman in the foxhole shifted his weight from one foot to another and spit out onto the ground. He was a veteran, unlike the rest of the re- enforcements. And he had experienced the stupidity of orders many times before, this was just one more to tell his grandkids about...if he lived to have them.  
  
"I'm aware of that Ken, but Division told Regiment, Regiment told Battalion, and Battalion ordered me. That's how the shit falls," Kensuke sighed heavily into the receiver, shaking his head at the radioman in pure stupefied disbelief. "Look, we've also got the 1-2-7 Panzer Grenadiers here, I'll ask that they be sent up with the armor to keep you company. Right?"  
  
Kensuke nodded, not minding that his commander couldn't see him, "Yes sir."  
  
The line went dead, and the phone exchanged hands. "Well? Sarge?"  
  
Kensuke stared at his feet for a time, studying the wrinkles and waves that had been shaped over the long time that he had been wearing them. In a way, they looked like an ocean...a small, shiny, black ocean. Covered with grime, and gore, and blood, and mud-  
  
"Sarge?"  
  
Kensuke snapped out of his reverie and locked his eyes on the radioman. "Tanks, and more re-enforcements. Germans, I believe."  
  
The radioman took it in solid form, merely...nodding and resigning himself to the fact, "Should I tell the men Sarge?"  
  
With a nod from Kensuke, the man was off.  
  
High above, the whine of fighter jets screamed across the war-torn plains. They circled and dove and intertwined with one another in their little dance of death. Bullets were fired, rockets released, rolls and slips and dips were pulled off. But eventually, one fighter exploded into a thousand flaming shards.  
  
The Russian fighter pulled off and headed home, content to let his enemy plummet to the snowy ground below.  
  
Kensuke found it slightly ironic that the plane plowed into the thin tree line that faced parallel to his own thin line. A burning line of orange flame burned those trees for nearly two hundred meters, near the start of it's life: he could make out the poor Russian bastards unfortunate enough to be in its path thrashing about, covered head to toe in flames like Buddhist monks.  
  
He ordered his men not to waste their ammunition in trying to hit the easy targets.  
  
Better to let them burn.  
  
~~~  
  
Kensuke felt something tap his foot.  
  
He ignored it and rolled over, absently noting that his helmet slipped down across his nose as he re-adjusted his head for his new position. Then he felt something kick his foot.  
  
He shot out of his curled position, all thoughts of getting some decent sleep for once instantly dashed out of his mind. He held his pistol at the ready, the short length of its barrel shifting only slightly as it was aimed at the offensive intruder.  
  
"Nicht schiessen, nicht schiessen!" the man shouted, furiously waving his hands before his body as though he would be able to ward the bullet off with his palms. Kensuke took a moment to study the man in his gray uniform. Then he reached up and pulled him down to the ground.  
  
"Idiot! Never stand up on the line!" Kensuke shouted at him, the poor man's uniform curling around his clenched fist. The German soldier nodded and Kensuke threw him away from himself. "Goddamn foreigners...can't understand a word I'm saying."  
  
The German pulled himself up, clutching his shins in a manner not unlike what Shinji used to do. His mouth opened and he hesitantly, and haltingly, spoke a few words. "A-are...Yo-u...Sergeant...A-Aida?"  
  
Kensuke felt his eyelids slowly lower until they hid the top of his eyes, 'So, our little European boy does speak some Japanese...'  
  
"Yeah, I'm Aida. Who are you?"  
  
The soldier spoke again, his words slowly gaining in speed and coherence, "I s-see...I am C-Corporal Rhineheart. From the...one t-twent-y seventh. We've just..arr-ived."  
  
Kensuke looked at the man, his brain still fogged with the haze of interrupted sleep. Finally, after a few slaps and rough rubs, he started to act like the soldier he was supposed to be, "All right then. How many are you?"  
  
"One hundred, sixteen."  
  
"How many tanks?"  
  
The German looked back to the rear of the hole and started to lurch himself upwards and to his feet. Kensuke quickly launched himself across the dugout and latched a hold to the man's shoulder. He waved a solitary finger before his eyes.  
  
"No...snipers. We've just been targeted this afternoon."  
  
"I see," the man nodded jerkily, his helmet bobbing up and down inversely to his head. "I think...that th-ere are twelve Grant-Shermans and five APC's. Though I could be mistaken a-bout the APC's."  
  
Kensuke bobbed his head once before he slid back across the square foxhole and into his once-warm corner. He gingerly wrapped his frozen arms around his chest, thrusting his numb fingers underneath the warm, dampness of his armpits. The lure of sleep began to draw him in, the warm comfort of rest slowing his heart and easing his mind.  
  
"Have you seen much fighting?"  
  
Kensuke groaned, and slid one eyelid up to glare at the soldier. "How old are you?"  
  
"Me?" the soldier said, pointing a finger at his face. It looked like it had never been shaved. "I've just turned ninteen."  
  
"Well kid, I'm nearing twenty-one...and I've been fighting in this war for nearly three years. Out of those three years: I've never once managed to find a moment to sleep besides the night...and it's cold enough to freeze your damn ball's off here at night. So do me a favor, be quiet and make sure nothing starts to cross that field."  
  
Kensuke finished his dictation by tossing the German soldier his old and used field binoculars. The kid picked them up and studied the few center- set knobs with a mild interest. Kensuke could care less about it though, he just wanted to get to sleep.  
  
After a few moments, he drifted off into the black oblivion of unconsciousness.  
  
God how it felt good.  
  
~~~  
  
"MEDIC!"  
  
~~~  
  
The shelling was intense.  
  
A pounding stream of hot steel constantly thrown at speeds that made Kensuke's head spin. Once again, the familiar smell of disturbed earth and hot sulfuric gases washed across the foxhole. Small pieces of soil, flesh, bone, and metal were thrown high and far up into the air...only to come raining back down on the poor unfortunates underneath. Plumes of dark Russian soil erupted into miniature geysers; billows of choking, eye- watering smoke covered the entire line of mixed foxholes and miniature trenches.  
  
The familiar cries of Medic, Medic rang out from nowhere, and everywhere. Everyone seemed to be shouting for a medic, everyone seemed to be injured or near someone who was injured.  
  
'No...That isn't true. Stop thinking like that Kensuke!'  
  
"Sarge! What should we do?" his German foxhole buddy asked. Kensuke spared him a minor glance and assured himself that the kid was indeed fine and healthy, except for the runny nose and panicked look that is.  
  
"We wait in the hole, and pray that nothing hits us," Kensuke shouted down to the boy as he peered through the thick haze of choking smoke and across the ruined field to the trees on the far side.  
  
"What about the tanks!?" the German yelled back.  
  
Kensuke stopped, 'Yes...what about the tanks indeed?'  
  
Kensuke turned around, head still peaking out of the meger cover of his hole, "You go ba-" An explosion shredded the ground before Kensuke, instantly wrenching him off of his precarious position and violently depositing the Japanese sergeant onto the ground.  
  
"AIDA!"  
  
The Rhineheart rushed over to Kensuke's side and rolled him over easily. Drifts of smoke wafted clear of the collection of winter coats, and small bits of clumpy earth pooled and rolled off of the tattered front of his uniform. Small bits of metal protruded from his steel helmet, and a long and ragged tear encircled the entire left side; extending from just behind his ear and moving all the way forward until it ended near his eye. Kensuke was bleeding underneath that helmet, and for a moment Rhineheart panicked. With speed born of desperation, he wrenched the straps away from their bindings and pushed the helmet free.  
  
Rhineheart sighed.  
  
A slow vibration started to work its way through the cold, hard-packed dugout floor. He could feel it bury itself deep within his belly, shaking and jarring his innards around as he crouched by the unconscious Sergeant.  
  
A deep TCHTHOOM sounded from behind his position, and a scream of the departing shell made him wince and fall protectively in on himself. Somewhere in the distant line of trees, an explosion sounded.  
  
A cheer rang out along the line as more tanks edged forward to the line of foxholes, all the while firing on the thin row of evergreens that hid the Russians.  
  
Rhineheart heard the cheers and felt something surge in his chest. Slowly, mindful of the very large and very dangerous piece of weaponry not more than ten meters behind him, he crawled up to the edge of his foxhole. His hands dug deep into the pebbly black soil, and with a small grunt, he wrestled himself up to the edge.  
  
Tchthoompth, Tchthoompth, Tchthoompth, Tchthoopmth.  
  
Four successive blasts from the large, squat, and angular tanks sounded across the battlefield. Tall pines, soaring nearly eighty to ninety feet in height, suddenly shattered and toppled in on themselves. A successive volley of uncoordinated fire rang out from the line of holes as they spied scrambling Russian troops run from out under the dying behemoths.  
  
More than one fell to that volley.  
  
And more than one died underneath a tree.  
  
Night was falling as the tanks slowly drew themselves back from the line of foxholes.  
  
It began to snow.  
  
~~~  
  
Kensuke awoke from darkness, into darkness.  
  
Well, it wasn't really that dark out. The moon was full, and the plain was covered in the cool blanket of fresh snow, which was still coming down, gently but steadily. He rose from his huddled position, and shivered as the unnoticed blanket he had been covered with fell away. He looked down at it, and in doing so discovered the condition of his uniform.  
  
Not much better, or worse, than it had been before.  
  
'Who had this blanket?' he wondered.  
  
"Good morning Sarge," came a German-accented sentence. He knew the accent to be German, because he had been around one for the better part of five years. They weren't exactly pretty years either.  
  
"Corporal..?" Kensuke started, feeling dizzy and disjointed.  
  
"Rhineheart Sarge, Corporal Rhinehart," the boy replied, never once taking his eyes away from the binoculars they were pressed up against.  
  
Kensuke reached behind him and pulled backwards, shifting his body back and allowing him to sit upright, "How long was I out? And what the hell hit me?"  
  
Rhineheart just stared through the binoculars, slowly panning back and forth. Kensuke was preparing to ask the boy again, thinking that he had said it too quickly for him to understand, when Rhineheart replied.  
  
"You've been out since nightfall Sarge, a shell exploded two meters in front of the hole. Your helmet managed to deflect the worst part of it...and the concussion forced you down into the hole before any of the nastier pieces could come by."  
  
Kensuke blinked and looked for his helmet. He found it in poor shape, and gingerly fingered the long gash running down the left side. 'It's a wonder that I'm still alive.'  
  
"What happened after?"  
  
Rhineheart slowly lowered the binoculars and gestured for Kensuke to join him, once the Japanese man had joined him, he answered. "The Grant-Shermans came up to the line and started shelling them back. They managed to shake up their artillery OP up pretty good, because they stopped shelling us soon after."  
  
Kensuke believed him; he would have called his own assault off if he were underneath what he saw across the field too. Bent, twisted tree trunks; shattered splinters of wood the size of a man's forearm; eighty-foot length trees that apparently fell directly on top of several men.  
  
"It started to snow as night fell, and the tanks were ordered back. One was hit though, minor damages from what the next hole over reports."  
  
Kensuke sat there, listening to the report, and slowly found himself to be...amazed.  
  
'This kid is only a corporal...but he's doing a first sergeant's job without even being asked to do so. Where the hell did they find somebody like this?'  
  
Kensuke didn't voice that opinion though, no...Perhaps it would be best to ask him subtly. Besides...in three years he had never had a single, decent conversation about somebody's home out in the field. Kensuke patted Rhineheart on the back and then gently forced him back down into the foxhole.  
  
They sat there, watching their breath ooze out into the air and then slowly waft away.  
  
Dissipating with a sparkle of moonlight.  
  
"So, Rhineheart...how in hell do you know Japanese?"  
  
It was something that had been bugging him for some time now...but this was his first opportunity to actually ask the boy the question. Rhineheart laughed.  
  
"Well, my aunt was Japanese...and my uncle was German. They spoke more Japanese than German around their house, and I decided that it was a rather interesting language. So I found some courses that taught Japanese and I went from there."  
  
"Really?" Kensuke asked, his interest piqued.  
  
"Yeah," Rhineheart replied, a small shiver going through him as his body cooled with the night's inactivity.  
  
"So why did you join your army?"  
  
"Well, I didn't really..."  
  
Kensuke smirked; he knew this story all too well, "Drafted."  
  
"You got it...number 21 in the draft. In a month I was packed up, and heading out for basic. Most of the unit is from the same city."  
  
"The same city from Germany? They do that over there?" Kensuke felt his stomach growl and complain, but he just covered it with his hands and ignored it's protests. He had nothing to feed it anyway.  
  
"Yeah, Frankfurt. That's how our military has always done it. Tradition, I suppose...Our commander wasn't from Frankfurt though."  
  
"Commander?" Kensuke asked, leaning back to stare at the stars.  
  
Rhineheart nodded and pulled out his canteen, a few shakes told him one of two things: either the canteen was empty...or the water inside was frozen. Another shiver wracked his body as he leaned back against the rock-solid earthen wall.  
  
"Yeah, she was a real bitch when it came to most things. But she did have her qualifications..."  
  
"Who is this?" Kensuke asked dreamily, imagining of the days when he dreamed of doing such things.  
  
Rhineheart sighed, "Lieutenant Asuka Langley Sohryu-"  
  
"WHAT!" Kensuke shouted, sitting upright. He stopped short though, and a flush of red crept into his pale face as he realized that he had just shouted across a very quiet and still battlefield.  
  
'Shit.'  
  
Rhineheart just calmly watched the Japanese man though, not at all perturbed that his foxhole buddy had just shouted at the top of his lungs. Instead, he was more perturbed that Kensuke had shouted at all...well, then again, considering who his commander had been it was understandable.  
  
"Yeah, we had the infamous Second Child, pilot of the Evangelion Unit 02 as our commander. God...what a nightmare," he concluded by rolling his eyes and shaking his head back and forth.  
  
"I don't believe it," Kensuke whispered raggedly, apparently not hearing Rhinehearts last comment. "Asuka? A lieutenant?"  
  
"Hun? You know her?" Rhineheart was intrigued now, sitting away from the wall and looking intently through the gloomy dark of the night at Kensuke.  
  
"Well...yeah, yeah I do know her."  
  
"No way! How?"  
  
Kensuke frowned, he didn't like to brag about his past...and he didn't care to remember about NERV and the Evangelions too often. "I'm from Tokyo-3."  
  
That was all that needed to be said to the German boy, and by the width of his eyes...he understood the implications of what being from "The" Tokyo-3 meant.  
  
"...I see..."  
  
"She was in all of my classes in Japan, at least that place was fucking warmer than this shithole...all of the Eva pilots were in my classes. I was best friends with the Third and Fourth Children..." Kensuke stopped there, feeling a rush of emotions washing back over his body as he recalled that painful year.  
  
Him meeting Shinji for the first time.  
  
Meeting Asuka for the first time.  
  
Seeing the Evangelions fighting for humanity.  
  
Seeing Toji Suzuhara in the hospital...missing a leg.  
  
Seeing the great Asuka Langley Sohryu being raped by the Fifteenth.  
  
Seeing Rei Ayanami, destroy herself and her Evangelion to take out her enemy.  
  
Seeing NERV almost fall to the JSSDF.  
  
Kensuke felt a wellspring of unshed tears fill in behind his lower eyelid. A familiar sensation, and one that he never let progress any farther than that. He would not cry for them...he shouldn't cry for them. He couldn't cry for the warriors of that Children's Crusade.  
  
Because they were still alive.  
  
Kensuke knew a lot of men who weren't.  
  
A distant Tchum, Tchum, Tchump rang out across the winter plain.  
  
~~~  
  
"INCOMING!"  
  
~~~  
  
The day had been long.  
  
The day had been hard.  
  
The defenders had fought mightily and tirelessly against the rush of their enemies.  
  
And the sweeping tide of the Russian advance was halted once again.  
  
But, a price is demanded from the god of war from both sides.  
  
And so, the blood of many ran with the blood of few.  
  
On that battlefield, coated with snow so white, clean, pure...and new.  
  
-Unknown poet, written on Christmas day in the Marminskv Salient...2021.  
  
Night was falling again, but it made little difference to Kensuke, or to his sole companion: Rhineheart. There was an indefinable bond found by all who share that horrible experience of combat. It means a lot to another human if you are there with him, suffering as he suffers, feeling the same terror and fear that he does day in and day out.  
  
That bond had cemented between the two. And as night fell again, and the lists of the dead and the wounded were passed down the lines, Kensuke and Rhinehart found themselves staring up at the dark sky. Waiting for the stars to come out.  
  
"Tomorrow is Christmas..." Rhineheart started.  
  
Kensuke hummed a reply, preferring not to think about the day ahead of him.  
  
"I can already tell what my family is doing right at this very moment. Jessika is running around the dinner table, shouting that she wants to open her presents...Father is sitting at the head of the table, slowly carving away at the roasted turkey even as Mother is telling Jessika to sit down and eat her food. Oscar is patiently waiting for his plate to be filled, reading some book or another...not paying any attention to what's happening around him," Rhineheart laughed as he remembered the Christmas' of his past, enjoying the gay memories of his life. His cheeks beamed red with a psuedoheat from a false fire as he turned to look at Kensuke's lean face. "What about your family? What do you think they are doing?"  
  
Kensuke looked down along his nose, and stared into the far wall of his foxhole.  
  
"Sarge?" Rhineheart's voice lost it's good cheer, slowly slipping into dreading apprehension.  
  
Kensuke cleared his throat, the rough sound like a snare drum being rapped as hard as it could, "I...My family is all dead now...I don't have anyone left."  
  
"Not even," Rhineheart gestured speculatively into the frigid ebony of the night. "An aunt? Or an Uncle?"  
  
Kensuke shook his head.  
  
'The Evangelion project took more than just one family. And it wasn't only the pilots...'  
  
The mood of the foxhole took a sharp dive; it hit rock bottom and pulled out a jackhammer. It remained that way for several hours, the time passing without either of the two noticing it.  
  
Then, from across the field...a soft, deep voice began to sing.  
  
Both men in the hole found themselves consciously trying to make no noise, their ears attentively trying to hear every word of the far off singer. To Kensuke, the words were meaningless...something about night, but he couldn't understand the rest. The tune was familiar though...but for the life of him, he couldn't remember it.  
  
Very familiar.  
  
Suddenly, Rhineheart stood up from his crouched huddle.  
  
"Rhineheart! What tha-"  
  
Kensuke fell silent as Rhineheart too, began to sing.  
  
"Stille Nacht!  
  
Heil'ge Nacht!  
  
Alles Schlaft;  
  
Einsam wacht.  
  
Nur das traute  
  
Hoch heilige Paar.  
  
Holder Knab'  
  
Im lockigten Haar,  
  
Schlafe in himmlischer  
  
Ru-uh!  
  
Schlafe in himmlischer, ruh."  
  
Then, Kensuke heard something that truly amazed him. And for the first time in years...he cried. All along the line of foxholes, where men had fought and died and bled and suffered, where men used the weapons and art of war to kill their fellow man. Where an hour before one person ruthlessly and coldly gunned down another as he tried to seek shelter from the life-stealing pieces of lead...  
  
They began to sing.  
  
Their voices, deep and rich with the hoarse throats of men long without water, all sang together. Some in English, others in Japanese, a majority in German.and a few in Russian.  
  
"Silent Night,  
  
Holy night."  
  
One by one, men began to stand up...their heads and chests clear of their foxholes completely. Totally exposed to the enemy that they had for so long been trying to kill.  
  
Totally trusting.  
  
"All is calm..  
  
All is bright."  
  
From the opposing line of trees came the rich return in throaty Russian. Tonight, both friend and foe alike joined in singing. Slowly, Kensuke began to join with them.  
  
"Round, yon Virgin  
  
Mother and Child."  
  
Slowly, and without even looking down as his feet slipped and skidded along the loose dirt of the hole, Rhineheart stepped out of the dugout completely...and began walking out into the field. As Kensuke watched in grotesque admiration he noticed several more following the boy's lead. Then...all of the men who still lived in their cold, damp holes of frozen earth...stepped out. And began to cross the shattered field.  
  
"Holy Infant, so  
  
Tender and mild."  
  
And across that war torn field...their counterparts were doing the same.  
  
"Sleep in Heavenly  
  
Pe-eace!"  
  
Slowly, the gap between the two forces closed. Twenty meters...ten meters...five meters. Rhineheart soon found himself standing opposite to the voice that had first begun the song, and together: they finished it with slowly softening voices.  
  
"Sleep in Heavenly peace."  
  
For a long moment, the entire front was quiet. Then, Rhineheart extended his hand to the Russian singer. And he shook it. In that moment, the world rotated just enough for it to be midnight and one second past. In that moment, the old day had passed, and the new one had been ushered in.  
  
It was Christmas Day. 


	5. Dreams of a Pilot

Alrighty then, a fair warning to the readers of this new "One-shot". Yes there is a character in this story with the name of Isaac Asimov Seldon. And yes, he does seem to be an SI. But there is a very, VERY good reason why he's in this story. So just grin and bear it, and trust me.  
  
Because, as with any story I write, nothing is as it seems to be.  
  
A time line note for this story: In the general jist of things, this story is happening at the same time as one of the other OAP stories, "Friends of a Pilot: Kensuke". Parts of the plot are intertwined with that story, but each can be viewed as separate pieces on their own.  
  
Now then, to the story!  
  
The Seldon Planner Presents:  
  
An Etherworlds Production  
  
Dreams of a Pilot  
  
~~~~  
  
The club was thick with the sour stench of sweat, and the stale odor of old cigarettes.  
  
Three hundred people bounced up and down, leapt from side-to-side, tumbled down below feet and up above hands as the music soared, revved, and pounced from one extreme to another. Thick baselines trembled through the walls in contrast to soaring notes of a solitary piano set within a strangely beautiful electronic trance.  
  
Behind an old, stained bar that smelled like rancid beer and sticky-sweet wine four men and two women struggled to keep up with the never-ceasing flow of orders and special requests that poured like the liquor they served from waitresses and patrons alike.  
  
On the small, off-set stage three people writhed and jived to the beating rhythm of the song. Two were dancers, dressed in their up-fashion shirts and skimpy jean skirts that showed a good deal of leg (and maybe something else betimes) and feet set in shoes that were expensively trendy to say the least. And the last was a man of his early twenties, dressed in a thin blue shirt that was loosely concealed by a white, button-up collar. His hair was nearly down to his shoulders and neatly pulled back into a thick ponytail. A thick sheen of sweat beaded across his forehead and ran down in stinging streams to blind his ocean-blue eyes as they peered intently through the thin glasses perched precariously on his slippery nose. A set of well-worn headphones is set slightly off-kilter on his head, with one covering his ear and the other part set off behind his other.  
  
From those headphones came the same pulsating beat that rocketed across the large club room, a sprightful remix of his favorite classic. Pachabel's Canon in D. The club was booming, thriving, writhing, shaking, moving, grooving. A mass of people jumping and singing and dancing all together; synchronized in heart, mind, body, and spirit.  
  
And seeing all this, all those people happily moving to the song in unison, Shinji felt a thick chill descend on him.  
  
***  
  
Shinji Ikari. Aged twenty-one years, and not a day of it was any happier than his last. He had lost his mother at age four, lost his father at age five, gone to war at age fourteen, lost his best friend the same year (and his unknown sister as well), destroyed the world at age fifteen only to bring it back in all its miserable glory, and then lost his first love at age seventeen.  
  
Now he was twenty-one and in his final year of college. And ever since that day when he walked away from Asuka, it had all been one pile of shit after another. He had few friends, mainly Touji and Kensuke, but even they weren't really his friends anymore.  
  
His relationship with Touji was--strained; mostly his fault, but the feeling was mutual on both sides. Just one unfortunate side effect that his little war with God. One that had ruined his friendship with his fellow classmate.  
  
Kensuke--Kensuke was off fighting in Russia for the Japanese Army. Doing what he loved best, no doubt about that. Shinji was offered a high ranking job with great pay in the Army staff if he joined them, but he had turned them down.  
  
One war was enough for his life.  
  
So here it was, nearly Christmas in Japan. No snow of course, the weather still being that same humid heat that scorched the sidewalks and withered the green leaves on the sakura trees. Where ever Kensuke was, it was snowing all the time there. Shinji had received a few letters from Kensuke, who treated him like a brother from the casual, affectionate way he wrote. Shinji was fine with that, as he knew that Kensuke's family was departed from the world now, gone in the ring of LCL that still hovered across the night sky like a crimson slash of blood.  
  
It was this slash that Shinji first noted as he stepped out of the still pulsing club, a cigarette coming out of its foil pack and up to his mouth as he started down the alley. He watched it for a moment, his mind silently giving the souls of the remaining a silent prayer asking for forgiveness.  
  
They didn't answer him, as usual.  
  
His callused hands scrounged through his pockets, groping for his lighter. A thin breeze was wafting across the harbor that night, cooling the depressing heat of Kyoto slightly. It wasn't the original Kyoto of course; that city had been swept underneath the rising waves of a wrathful ocean. This city, like most of Japan's cities now, was only twenty or so years old. Developed in as near a site as the original Kyoto and as near the same street-layout that could possibly be made. Shinji didn't remember why the builders did that, just that the Kyoto of old, the one he never would see unless he went diving amongst its ruins, looked very similar to the Kyoto of today.  
  
The flickering flame seemed garishly obtrusive against the dark curtains of the night sky. Though that sky wasn't a very good curtain if one viewed it as such. What with the many thousand holes that penetrated its thick, velvet draperies; not to mention the rather large hole that constituted the moon herself.  
  
And then there was that ghastly streak.  
  
The flame whisped out in the wind, leaving only the bright embers of his cigarette to ruin the nigh-perfection of beauty that was the vast sky above. The clouds of silver-platinum stars shimmered in the winking atmosphere, sending shivers of an unknown appreciative emotion through his body.  
  
Behind him the door opened again.  
  
"Oi, Shinji." It was the club manager. He was a nice fellow, one who didn't ask too many questions and who didn't care where you came from. If you were a good ear with the music and a deft hand at the trade you were trying to ply, he would take you in and give you a job. Not that Shinji needed a job, his pension from the Japanese Government was more than enough to have a house and live on comfortably. His college was paid for too, a nice add-in that they threw to him. "You alright man? I noticed you didn't stay around long after you're shift was done."  
  
Shinji pulled a long drag on his smokestick and then puffed out the blue- grey smoke in heaves and spurts. "I just felt a little weird tonight, that's all."  
  
The manager, a pudgy little man with hanging jowls who dressed always in a thin, stained white shirt with now sleeves nodded. He patted Shinji in an attempt to be comforting and then passed over a thick envelope. "Your months wages. I know you said wait until next week, but I couldn't fit anymore in."  
  
Shinji took the yellow-brown envelope wordlessly and stuffed it into one of his pockets. The manager thought about saying something more, but moved back to the door. Shinji took the envelope out and peered into the dim innards. There was at least a good hundred thousand yen there, not a hefty sum by the current standards of living and the currency value index--but more than some people were making.  
  
'What am I going to do with this now?'  
  
***  
  
Shinji lived in a shithole.  
  
But he didn't much care at all where he was living at anymore. A lot of things about him had changed since the War between Heaven and Earth came to its horrific close. Mainly, he had lost his exceedingly perfectionist taste for cleanliness. His cooking skills were faltering as well, as the only practice he exercised them with was to make himself the occasional grilled cheese sandwich.  
  
His apartment, a second-floor rathole who's stained walls and thread-bare carpet testified to it being a genuine pre-Second Impact house, was a cluttered mess of books, clothes, old takeout boxes, and other miscellaneous items that were almost the standard of college-boy living.  
  
He had been this way since he broke up with Asuka.  
  
Shinji's face screwed up in distaste as he flipped the heavy packet of money onto his low table by the ratty couch that served as his bed. His real bed, a second-hand futon with burn marks all over the bottom side of it, was rarely used by the occasional visitor that for some unprecedented reason had decided to visit Shinji's abode. The couch squeaked and rocked as the weary man flopped down into its scratchy embrace. His hand shot out and captured a thin remote of matte black. Music started from the only item of real expense in the entire apartment.  
  
The song was an older one, after the Impact of course. A hard-lining beat and queasy rifts from guitars that chimed along behind the lead singer's very mellow voice. Shinji found his feet tapping along to the beat, a fast and very intense baseline that was deliciously enthralling to the keyed ears of the some-time DJ.  
  
As the song came to an end the station jockey sang out the songs name and the band who had released it. "Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age, another oldy from the time of troubles back in the day my peoples! And now we've got a new beat for all youse there in the Kyoto residency. From our own local clubhouses: Pachabel's Cannon in D by DJ U-1!"  
  
Shinji couldn't help but smile as the station started playing the very same mix that he had playing at the club tonight. He had become sort of a local celebrity here, taking songs he loved and played on his trusty cello of old and turning them into favorite mixes at all the local college clubs.  
  
They never knew who he was at the club though, only the manager knew that. They just all assumed that he was playing to the local trends at the time, never realizing that when he played a popular mix that they heard it from him first.  
  
They never knew who he was.  
  
And he liked it like that.  
  
Shinji drifted off into a restless dream about Asuka that night.  
  
*** When he woke up next, the sun was streaming through one of the several dingy windows that lined the peeling walls of his home. His back was killing him too, right around the kidneys. He had been feeling that kind of pain lately whenever he had slept in too much. The stereo was silent, so that meant that he had turned it off sometime during the night. Or maybe this morning?  
  
Didn't matter.  
  
His hair was, as usual for one of his nights, a mess. The band that held the long hair back in place had slipped off during the night, letting his hair free. The result of that freedom was that it now looked like a complete mess, and felt like a sopping rag of oil and dirt.  
  
His hands felt like thick, useless appendages as he raised them to rub the gritty sand from his eyes as they blearily looked about the sun lit room. Groaning in pain from his back, Shinji rolled off the warm, sweat-smelly couch and crawled about the floor until he felt clear-headed enough to stand on his own.  
  
The water that streamed from his shower was freezing. Shinji shivered and suffered through it quickly, soaping up his hair and then rinsing it out after a good thirty seconds had passed by. He stepped out feeling the pain still; but he felt refreshed and focused.  
  
Then he remembered his dream.  
  
The air was cold to his lightly-browned skin as the water evaporated into the air. But the shivers he trembled under weren't all from that cool air. The memory of his first love was--heartbreaking. To remember the warmth of her curving body as they lay together on Misato's couch, to remember the sweet cherry kisses of her shapely lips and the silk-soft feel of her auburn hair as it slid through his spread fingers.  
  
Asuka and he had gone together for more than a year. And the whole time of it had been pure bliss and honeyed Heaven for, well, him at least. But in the end, he just couldn't take it anymore. The guilt that had been riding at him, that had chafed him with anxious worry had finally broken through. And so with tears in his eyes and a soft cello melody, he broke to Asuka the news of his desire to let her go.  
  
She had taken it as best as he expected. Which is to say: badly.  
  
At first she had feared that she had done something wrong, and like most first guesses with this sort of deal, she was wrong about it. When Shinji couldn't explain why he wanted to break up, she had flown apart and started crying.  
  
That scared him.  
  
They wound up in each others arms at the last of it, with Asuka wracked by sobs and Shinji crying silently as well; the day ended with them still like that in his room, and then--then she--  
  
Shinji broke from that line of thought and hastily stormed into his kitchen to twist open his refrigerator door. His face was flushed red from the barest hint of memory that had surfaced into his mind at what had occurred after he asked Asuka to leave him. He didn't quite understand why he still felt like that about the situation. After all, that had been four years ago. A lifetime. Why should he still feel embarrassed about a simple human act?  
  
Why?  
  
Shinji pulled out the only item of the refrigerator and drank deeply. The sweet taste of the white wine burned through his throat and wormed its way deep through his empty stomach. The booze hit his nerves like a bomb and sent him reeling on his feet, but it stopped his hands from shaking.  
  
Shinji didn't drink much. Well, at least not as much as Misato did. But he did have his occasional bender that ended with him waking up in some kind soul's bed with a headache to kill an Angel. Could you really blame him though? With those never-forgotten images from seven years past still floating in and out of his thoughts every waking moment of the day?  
  
Could you really say that you wouldn't drink too to keep the sight of your best friend, lying broken and near death because you didn't have the stomach to take control of the situation yourself and stop it? Because Shinji couldn't, he couldn't stop drinking to keep the sights and memories away. Just as he couldn't forget those same sights and memories themselves.  
  
How depreciating.  
  
Shinji rummaged through the massive piles of dirty clothing and quickly selected out a set of pants that smelled only slightly like stale smoke and threw them on along with a gray shirt followed by a white button up. His books were waiting in his bag by the door and his keys were on the table.  
  
A few moments more and he was gone to class.  
  
***  
  
When Shinji returned to his home the sun was sinking in the distant horizon, his classes had ended about two hours ago, but he spent that time wandering around by the bay; looking out over the sea. His face felt prickly and soiled, an unfortunate affect that his forgetting to shave in the morning and the deplorable air conditioning of the University had on him. He contemplated growing a beard once again; and just as he had before, Shinji rejected the idea.  
  
He still shivered whenever thoughts of his dead father came to his mind. Just as he was shivering now. Those thoughts vanished soon enough though, as a familiar clack-clack-clack of hardened wood against wood clashed together. Rounding the bend of streets and sidewalks Shinji came to see one of the grand sights of his apartment complex play out in all its intrinsic form.  
  
Now, Shinji had lived there for nearly 2 years, so he was on distantly- friendly terms with the other tenants. And it was one of these tenants who was now surrounded by a dozen bare-chested (or wearing a sports bra in the case of the females), gym-short wearing persons. Each was armed with a wooden bokken and patiently waited in a large circle, except for the two students that were attacking a doubly-armed man in the center. The tenant Shinji was thinking of.  
  
The story of this tenant, and how he came to be living in Kyoto only to now be surrounded by a dozen and more people who looked like they could quite easily pick him up and break him was an intriguing one to say the least.  
  
The man called himself Isaac Asimov Seldon. He told anyone who asked him about that name that his father had been a huge fan of Isaac Asimov (the science fiction writer for those out of the know). What Shinji knew about his name: was that all that was pure shit. The man's name was really William Robert Kitchens, and although his father was a big fan of Asimov, it was he who changed it from Kitchens to Seldon. That's another strange thing about this tenant; no one ever called him Isaac. You were introduced to him by his first name, but you either called him Seldon or Sel.  
  
And somehow, it felt more natural that way.  
  
Seldon was born roughly around the same time Misato and Kaji was, and grew up with a peaceful childhood over in the privileged States in a rural- suburbanite neighborhood in a coastal state. He was called an excellent student by his teachers, but he always did deplorable with his literature and mathematical studies. He made it into High School with a nervous penchant for being the rather quiet, menacing one who sat in the far back of the room and never spoke to anyone other than a small comradery of friends. He went into the local Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps with an enthusiasm and drive that bordered with sheer maniacal fanaticism; soon enough, he had distinguished himself from the other slackers and was earmarked for the highest-ranking position of the entire JROTC Battalion.  
  
But all this, didn't matter.  
  
Mainly it didn't matter because right as he was starting into his second year at school, and as a Master Sergeant in his JROTC unit; the World abruptly decided to try and end itself.  
  
Second Impact.  
  
In the world chaos that followed, young William was left alone in the world. An orphan with no parents, no brothers, no sisters. Yet, this did not even seem to phase him. Or hinder what he was about to do next. With that same drive and focus that labeled him the 'strange one' in his school, he organized a local militia out of the remnants of his JROTC battalion and then raided the local armory storehouse of Fort Gordon. This was comparatively easy as the place had already fallen to the growing chaos of the world, and had been abandoned by the small staff that had been left allocated to govern its few functions. Now armed, and armored with several small abandoned military vehicles, William set about restoring order with a murderous frenzy.  
  
As the waters rushed upwards and decimated the shore cities of the Eastern United States, William and his rouge militia roamed through the streets of the second-largest city in his state. Looters were everywhere as with any major, world-threatening crisis; stocking on food, water, batteries, and whatever else people imagined that they would need.  
  
One of the militia would later comment that the looters should have found some armor to protect them from the Sergeant. The militia opened fire on them. Yes, heartless of them to do; and some still question why they did it at all back in his home country. But, nevertheless, they opened fire and killed several dozen looters. For several months William, the Sergeant, and his militia carried on with the operation of restoring civility in their small corner of the world. Even when the ocean started looming barely twenty miles to the south of their home, they still went about the duties of keeping order.  
  
Four months had passed since the Second Impact destroyed half of the world's population before the first real military forces moved their relief camps into Augusta. What they found was quite the extreme opposite in what they had encountered with other cities along the coasts. Instead of rampant barbarinism, the advancing forces found a well-ordered city that was operation as closely to normal as it had been before the Impact.  
  
In some places they were even tearing down ruined structures and building houses in their place!  
  
And there to greet them, standing firm next to the mayor of the city and all his retinue of recently-appointed officials of law, fire, and city enforcement; was one fifteen-year-old kid with glasses sitting haughtily over his pimply face, and a freshly-pressed green uniform with only the nametag KITCHENS and a pair of stripes to decorate it.  
  
That was twenty years ago, when the extremity of the law was determined by how fast the weapon you carried could shoot. And now: he was Seldon, a foreigner in this land of war, death, and blood. He was a tall man, taller than most Japanese people, with a thick mop of wavy brown hair that looked perpetually unwashed and oily. He had a thin, scraggly beard that he shaved irregularly, and a thin mouth that hid crooked teeth. A small pair of glasses shielded his eyes from anyone who tried to see them, which reminded Shinji too much of his own father whenever he talked to the man.  
  
His talking: the man had a deplorable accent that he talked with. Always drawling out the words meant to fly off the tongue, and then clipping short the words that were supposed to be throaty and long. He spoke the language fairly well, having lived in the country for close to fifteen years, but Shinji always found it was much easier to speak to the man in English than his native tongue.  
  
One of the attacking men let loose a sharp cry of surprise as the sword Seldon had turned to face him suddenly blurred forward and struck him squarely in his groin. Three seconds later the man winced in what Shinji could only say was extreme agony before shakily tumbling over to the ground. His place was not empty for long though, as a woman rushed forward striking at Seldon's legs with a savage chop. The forty-odd man leapt backwards with surprising adroitness and then the dance resumed again with its new player. That was another thing about this gaijin. He loved swords.  
  
So much that he actually started to train himself at the age of thirteen in the arts of the quarterstaff. But wait? How does learning the staff teach the sword? To hear Seldon explain it, he started off with the staff because he didn't even have anything resembling a sword to start with. So until he got his first training sword, he practiced with the staff. Twirling, spinning, shifting between his fingers and his hands.  
  
It was this training that made his fights such an intriguing spectacle. Often he would step back twice and twirl his bokken through the air into his hands, so that a sword starting on the right would end up on the left and vice-versa. Then there were the several spinning whirls that he forced the bokken through with nothing but his fingers and his wrist. Most of the people he fought weren't taken aback by this unusual move, and if they were: it only lasted for the first instance.  
  
Shinji asked him why he did that if he knew it only worked on those he'd never fought before.  
  
Seldon smiled and just started flipping a piece of wood the length of his forearm through his fingers.  
  
A quick crakk sounded in the open yard of his apartment complex, Shinji came out of his remembering dreams just in time to duck the flying splinter of bokken before it collided with his eye. He faintly heard a muffled, "Sorry!" after he landed, but the ringing clack-clack-clack continued on without a moments slack.  
  
Standing up once again, Shinji saw that now Seldon was down to only one weapon (the other being a splintery-looking stump lying close to where they were currently fighting) and was hard pressed to keep the blows from hitting him.  
  
Shinji winced when a sudden kick caught the woman Seldon was fighting full in the breast, sending her coughing on the dusty ground, and then grunted with a ghost pain that every man feels as he witnessed Seldon get kicked, punched, and poked rather harshly in his own sensitive area.  
  
The second man, no wait: the fighter was another woman, relented when her opponent curled up into the fetal and just trembled there. The others applauded the woman who took a quick look around and then bowed to their steady applause. Seldon in the meantime stood with help from several bruised-looking men and women and then shambled over to the woman who had so painfully smarted him.  
  
"Well done, well done..." he trailed off with a cough. "Shall we go again in a month or so?"  
  
The woman looked genuinely offended, "You said in a week!"  
  
The pained, astonished look Seldon gave her set the gathered fighters to laughing fits. That was another trait of the gaijin, he could always make people laugh when he wanted them too. Which was probably a good thing, because he was a homicidal nut-case whenever he wasn't fighting or making people laugh.  
  
"Alright, one week we'll reconvene the process of determination. But this time: I'm wearing a cup!"  
  
"But you were wearing a cup this time gaijin!" called out one of the fighters, a youngish looking kid that couldn't be more than seventeen.  
  
"Oh?" Seldon put on a mask of confusion. "So that's what cracked. I thought it was my nuts."  
  
The fighters laughed, well: some laughed, others groaned. But even the groaners started laughing when Seldon reached into his shorts and pulled free a large chunk of grey plastic. The cup had been shattered. Shinji strolled up after the last of Seldon's fighting retinue had wandered off, chuckling in mild amusement as the tall man started picking out pieces of triangular plastic and dumping them in a pile.  
  
"Damn woman, that's really going to be a painful bruise..."  
  
"Sel, you never learn do you?" Shinji started in his mild English. "The women will always beat you like that now if you don't do something."  
  
The forty-odd gaijin gave Shinji a scathing look. "What do you mean 'will?' More like: 'always have' than 'will!'" The man laughed in his amenable way and clasped his neighbor hard across the shoulders. "Come on, let's have a drink, eh?"  
  
Shinji hrrmphed to himself and shrugged his bag higher up before stepping to follow, but something held him back. Some presence that tugged at the corner of his eye right near the periphery. He turned back, feeling a stiff breeze from the bay kick up and gush across the courtyard as he did so. Combined with the unusual sight he saw near an old oak tree across the street, the effect was chilling.  
  
The small boy was dressed in a gray suit tailored to his small stature, with a black tie and kerchief darkly present on the lighter backing of stormy clouds. His eyes could be seen clearly, very clearly for the distance Shinji was at. They were the color of his suit, storm grey and-- swirling? underneath a very neat and organized cut of mahogany hair. Yet all this was only mildly startling when you compared it to the companion that sat haughtily on the boy's shoulder; a raven of the purest black, with three eyes.  
  
"The life of a dream is only as long as the dreamer's desire." The voice was all voices, and none. Of many pitches, tones, octaves, and emulations with many subtle inflections all at once. What's more, it was the raven who was speaking. "Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?"  
  
Shinji screamed as he fell the small height of his livingroom couch to land on the cool, old wooden floor below it. For the longest time, Shinji just sat there staring at the floor and his hands above it. His body trembled at unknown terrors as he slowly lifted one hand up and turned it over and over and over in the white moonlight that streamed through his dingy windows.  
  
Shinji laughed a bit, his ears noticing that it sounded too high and strained to be anything but awkward. "It...it was a dream. A dream...yeah..."  
  
A soft snore cut through his shrilly assurance pep-talk like a buzzsaw through rotted paper. Shinji looked over past a vast menagerie of half- empty liquor bottles and turned over wine corks to stare at the snoozing Seldon buzz softly away in his leaned-back recliner.  
  
By his head stood the raven of three eyes.  
  
***  
  
When Shinji woke next he was curled up on the floor, a thin grey blanket tossed haphazardly over him. He groaned as a jolting pain surged through his body from the groin and back. 'More damn sleep-pains,' he thought before tossing the blanket back over the couch above and behind him.  
  
His head felt no better than the rest of him. In truth, it was probably the part about him that hurt the most of all. Shinji ran a quick guestimation of the amount of liquor and wine that had been consumed the night before, then divided that hazy number by two.  
  
He was surprised that he even woke up at all this early in the morning. The slam of a car door perked his ears and then squinched his eyes with pain. As the red blur left him he could faintly hear a heated argument between three people (or was it just one person talking to two others?) Straggling to the window he watched in weary interest as the thin figure of Seldon poked at a man dressed in what was undoubtably a JSSDF uniform. The grime smeared across the window prevented Shinji from seeing either of the two figures, one male and one female both in uniforms, clearly; but he heard their argument loud enough.  
  
"Tha-at's great!" Seldon said, drawing out the A. "That's just fucking great! Why don't you go up there and give him the big fucking news, huh?" he shouted at the two, making them flinch. "I'm sure HE'D love to know that lovely tid-bit that you fuckers have brought for him to read."  
  
"Sir, please calm down--" the woman started, as the man was too dumbstruck to do much more than stare.  
  
"Calm? I am fucking calm woman! But he sure as hell won't be when you give him that letter."  
  
"Sir, then what do you suggest!" the woman shouted back, finally losing her cool and settling for a defensive posture that crossed her arms under her breasts.  
  
Seldon stared between the two of them for a long while and then held out his hand. He said something in a lower voice than he had been previously using to the JSSDF officers and they handed over a small brown envelope without hesitation.  
  
They left Seldon there, letter in hand, and drove off immediately. Their issue-car of black-and-silver trim kicked up a line of dust and dirt as it sped down the street and disappeared around a bend. Seldon stood there for a time before turning around and storming up the stairs. Shinji went out to his door to meet him before he went further along to his own apartment.  
  
"Hey Sel, wha-"  
  
The gaijin brusquely brushed past him and then rushed up to his own floor and apartment. Leaving Shinji there by his doorjamb wondering just what in the hell was going on. As he heard Seldon's door slam Shinji sighed and went into his own.  
  
Answers would have to wait.  
  
***  
  
A day passed, Christmas day in fact.  
  
Shinji didn't even realize that Christmas had even passed by until he turned on the television that afternoon and heard the news reporters trading their stale jokes about the Christmas parades. To Shinji this didn't mean much. He didn't have anyone to buy him a present after all, and he had no one to buy a present for but Kensuke. Poor Kensuke.  
  
Shinji remembered that he had a letter hanging around somewhere from his old friend. An apology telling Shinji that he wouldn't be able to make it back over to Tokyo-3 to see him for Christmas because he was pulling line duty that day. Always like him, doing the dirty jobs so others could go to their families and have a relief from the hell of the Russian front.  
  
Always putting himself on the line for others.  
  
Shinji felt a sour darkness come over him as he chugged down the last of his drink, the bitter brown tea churning with his stomach acids as he sloshed from one room to another in search of his shoes. He was dressed with his normal conservatism; khaki pants, blue undershirt with a white button-up over it, his hair pulled back into the Kaji-esq ponytail. He had taken the time to shave and wash his teeth, but did little else but spray on some scented deodorant and rummage for clean (as clean as it got for him these days) clothing. It was underneath the table, still littered with its decorative collection of liquor bottles, that he found his shoes. Soon after he was out the door and down the street with a set of headphones to his four-year-outmoded SDAT clashing away in his head, with a pack of his CD mixes strapped across his back. It was off to work again and much the same was usual for Shinji.  
  
But change was moving.  
  
***  
  
Shinji stepped out of the club and pulled out the last of his cigarettes.  
  
'I really am becoming more and more like you Kaji, old boy. And sometimes I don't even know it.' The flame was guttering as usual, fighting for life against the thin breeze that drifted in from across the harbor. Shinji puffed on the end to draw the flame near and then exhaled liberally as the tip began to glow orange. The thin stream of death abated quickly in the air as the wind jetted about. Shinji watched it, trailed it from the origin to where it died and dissipated. Several moments passed this way, with him watching and waiting patiently for nothing to happen at all.  
  
He dropped the cigarette then, when a raven called out from behind him.  
  
Wide-eyed, he turned and pressed his backside up against the metal railing in astonished horror. The small boy was there, raven on his shoulders, peering at Shinji with an intensity rivaled only by Grandmaster Chess players at the world tournament.  
  
"H-holy--"  
  
"Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?" the raven cooed. For the first time in his life, Shinji desired ever so badly to have a gun. He reasoned that if the bullets did nothing to this devilish creature he could turn it on himself and end this dreadful insanity by retreating to the darkness of death.  
  
But a gun he had not, "W-who...what are you?"  
  
"Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?"  
  
Shinji shook his head back and forth in muddled misunderstanding. "I-I don't...uh...what?"  
  
"It's a simple question," Shinji jumped at the quick response of the boy. The small kid spoke with a heavy accented English that Shinji could only identify as being similar to the English language from Britain. "Have you dreamt lately...Shinji Ikari?"  
  
"Who are you!" Shinji shouted back, cowing both apparitions into silence for a moment. "What do you want from me?"  
  
It was the raven who answered next, the boy reaching up to stroke the line of silky-ebon feathers that ran from its beak to its breast. "It is not what we want from you, Shinji Ikari. It is what you want from us. And what they want from all." Shinji felt lost and groping for a light amidst an ocean of darkness. "So tell us: Have you dreamed lately, Shinji Ikari?"  
  
The world reeled, turning liquid and hazy as though Shinji was looking through a layer of clear quicksilver. The colors of the world were receding, fading, running like watery snot down from the facades they had adhered to since the dawn of time. Leaving behind only the dull shades of grey that marked the world of neutrality between all extremes.  
  
Even the moon was fading, changing. The magical light of the darkened night fading with the world as the waves of destabilizing reality sloshed across the globe. Shinji fell to his knees and heaved, his stomach purging itself of the hasty dinner Shinji had forced upon it two hours past.  
  
The thin splattering of the goop, a light grey in color, was more than enough for Shinji. He fell sideways and into darkness.  
  
He awoke into that same darkness. A black void that stretched for eternity in all directions and angles. A deep nothingness of color and texture that gave him the queasy sense of floating in a space not unlike the own airless void that hung loomingly outside that tranquil atmosphere of Earth.  
  
However, there were no stars, no planets, no moons, no suns here to lend that impression. No. Hell would never be that kind; if indeed this was Hell at all.  
  
"Shinji."  
  
His back went rigid at the soft-spoken voice; a thin corkscrew tendril of icy fear running along that stiff portion of backbone as memories and emotions buried deep into his mind and soul were resurrected and tossed violently into the light of the present. Without moving Shinji spun in space. Or maybe Space spun around him, where he was the center of everything and the black void around was fixed on his location? But unimportant things were quickly forgotten as, he, drifted into view.  
  
"Hello, Shinji Ikari," the boy with pale hair and blood for eyes remarked with his gentle voice. "It's been a while."  
  
Shinji trembled with that absolute distillation of horror know as fear as the phantasm drifted closer. He knew its form intimately, knew its every shape and angle even without the sickly-pale essence that glowed about its body. He knew those blood eyes, that grey hair, that pale skin that was so perfectly unmarred but for one place.  
  
That one place--the ragged line that zagged about its neck like some sick mockery of a hangman's scar. Shinji knew it all. And he was frightened.  
  
"Stay away!" he screamed, flailing in the void, trying to swim away in the weightless space about him.  
  
Kaoru Nagisa looked hurt as he started to step forward on an unseen floor, "But Shinji, you meant so much to me. Why...why are you running away from me Shinji?" Shinji felt a building rush of air scorch through his throat, a wheezing attempt for him to scream as Kaoru inched closer and closer. "Shinji?" blood started to bubble through the gash along his neck, pouring out and running down to his white shirt. Staining it as crimson as his eyes. "Shinji! SHINJI!!"  
  
***  
  
Shinji rolled through his vomit and to his knees with a piercing screech that echoed through the streets like a banshee's howl of madness and despair.  
  
Shinji was wearily stumbling out of the alleyway soon after he screamed out his anguish and horror. He felt tired, bone tired and more than a bit hazy about the realities of the world he was in. Everything seemed washed out and blurry now, but that was better than what it had been before.  
  
The foul, rancor odor of his vomit made his nose curl and burn with disgust; and his throat heaved and twitched as he forcefully choked down large gulps of precious-sweet air. He detested the slick feel of his shirts now. Felt none but utter revulsion for the sick way they clung to his skin, the way they took two seconds longer to shift and move along his body as he moved about. He hated it.  
  
Shinji stepped out into an empty street. It was well after three in the morning and most of Kyoto, except for the occasional party thrown by unambitious college students, was sleeping soundly through the night. Hardly a soul would be wandering through the streets now, and as far as he could see: Shinji was the only one on this street.  
  
Probably a good thing. He didn't really know how well he could deal with another human being after what he had just been through. Or how they would deal with him. Certainly he looked like a person from hell, with his vomit- sopping shirts that reeked of sour alcohol and rotting food; with his long, unkempt hair and the thick scattering of stubble that lined his face. He looked like a homeless thief, that's what he looked like tonight. Shinji scrambled home before anyone could see him.  
  
He threw off his clothes and rushed into the freezing jet of shower water to clean the stench of his stomach off. He sat and shivered under its blast of frigid water until his lips were blue and he could barely see for his eyelids flutter. Then he stepped out into the warm air and let the wind dry him off.  
  
Shinji didn't put any clothing on before flopping onto his couch and falling asleep.  
  
Once again drifting into a dream about Asuka.  
  
***  
  
When Shinji woke next, it was to the sound of a knock.  
  
"Who is it?" he blearily called out, rummaging about for a pair of pants and a shirt. When no one answered he went to his kitchen cabinets and pulled out the present Misato had graced him with before he moved out to college. The luger felt weighty and reassuring in his grip, just like Misato's presence. She had always been reassuring for him whenever she was about. God how he missed her.  
  
"Who is it?" Shinji called again, pulling back on the levered action that chambered the weapon and armed the firing pin. No one answered. Shinji crept towards the door, making as little noise as possible on the old, creaky hardwood floor. He pulled back the locking bolt with only the slightest of clicks and took in a deep breath.  
  
Shinji threw open the door.  
  
He almost dropped the luger next to his foot when he saw the smiling face of pristine beauty framed by those very familiar waves of auburn-gold. But by Fortune's grace, his fingers held the weapon by a loose grasp. For now, the only thing he was capable of was an open-mouthed gape at that beauteous creature.  
  
"Hello Shinji," Asuka said with her honeyed voice. "May I come in?"  
  
"O-of course!" Shinji said, much too loudly. But Asuka didn't seem to mind. She just brushed by him as he pushed the door open, smiling as she went.  
  
"Shinji," Asuka's tone was horrified, "You live like a pig!"  
  
Shinji winced as he shut the door and locked it back. He pulled the magazine out of the luger and then ejected the unspent bullet from its chamber. All this he set carefully aside on a table before going back to where a waiting Asuka was impatiently pushing clothing and empty food containers aside.  
  
"I swear," she was saying. "You men all live exactly the same way. Whatever happened to the clean person I once knew hun? To have you turn out like this after you left...tsk!"  
  
Shinji watched her move about with a false air of calm. Internally, his heart was racing and his pulse was nearly enough to beat his arteries out through his skin. 'She's here...she's actually here and talking to me! She's here...' And indeed she was. The four years apart from her had done nothing to reduce the beauty that she had possessed when he had last seen her at Misato's apartment just before he left for Kyoto. If anything, those four years had made her more exquisite in every way.  
  
"What are you grinning at?" Asuka asked him, her face turning into a sly, questioning look.  
  
Shinji, startled that she had asked him anything at all, dumbly groped for an answer. "Me? Ah...well, I...uh..."  
  
Asuka smirked and walked over to him, the scent of spicy perfume heavy on her nicely toned skin. "Oh, I see. Three minutes together and you've already been reduced to babbling at the mouth. Now, now Shinji...we've already been through that stage in our relationship."  
  
"Yeah, I...I suppose we have..." Shinji felt flushed and warm. Like an uncomfortable heat that you just had to bear and grin through before you could reach the next day that would be like a refreshing autumn stream. But it was a good warmth at the same time, one that brought back old memories and feelings to his heart.  
  
Asuka purred and ran a delicate finger along the line of his jaw; scraping at the thickening bush of stubble that was his father's gift to him. "Hmmm, you really should shave you know. One might think you were trying to look like Kaji...or worse, your dad."  
  
Shinji reached up and took her hand with his own, relishing the soft, creamy feel it had to it. A feeling that he had not remembered until now. "Maybe I am."  
  
Asuka laughed, a light trickle of water chiming across thin, crystal bells. "Well, I'd say you already succeeded in looking like Kaji," she tugged at the thick ponytail that hung limply behind his back, "but that's something to reach for. Looking like your father now..."  
  
Shinji smirked, but felt distantly removed from that joke. It just felt like someone making fun of your funeral. Not at all funny to the one who was being buried under six feet of cold, soggy soil. That was how he felt about that joke with his father. Not funny at all.  
  
"Well, I shall have to remedy that, shan't I?" he told her. Asuka laughed and twirled away from him, long hair flying in a crescent wave. Shinji just smiled at the very feminine way she was moving about the room, clearly meant for him to look upon and admire, and then ducked out to the water closet to take care of his facial problem.  
  
"When did you get into Kyoto?" Shinji asked as he quickly put his beard to the razor.  
  
"Oh, about eight this morning. I had to search around a bit before I found your place. I hope you don't mind me dropping by."  
  
Shinji stopped and looked out through the door to where Asuka was still shuffling through the mess of his livingroom. He glanced back to the dripping razor in his hands and then up to his sleep-deprived face. "No," he said softly, "I don't mind at all."  
  
He was smiling broadly as he came back to the room, now cleaned and straightened to a surprising degree. Asuka beamed at her handiness and turned to grin at the freshly-shaven Shinji. "Well, not bad right?"  
  
"Not bad?" Shinji looked about at the empty floorboards. "I'd say amazing, considering the fact that I was the one who had to clean your room not more than four years ago."  
  
"Yeah, well..." Asuka dropped her head and walked towards Shinji a bit. "That was four years ago Shinji, this is now."  
  
God she looked beautiful. Like the angelic definition of perfection in a woman. At least to Shinji. He raised his arms to her shoulders and then ran them along her back, pulling her forward to his bare chest in a fierce hug.  
  
"I missed you Asuka."  
  
She shuddered, then ran her arms along his waist and hugged back. "I missed you too, Shinji..." She didn't say more, she just started crying. Shinji cried along with her.  
  
***  
  
The sun was down again, and the cool breezes of night were flowing through the open windows of his home when Shinji opened his eyes again. He was sleeping in his stuffy, dust-rag of a futon of all places. Covered up by a thin, dusty sheet that had seen better days and more sun than it had under his care.  
  
His sudden waking made the woman next to him shift and squirm, her peaceful rest disturbed by him as he rose through the layers of unconscious darkness to the light of the present. Shinji shifted his head to stare at the gorgeous nymph that lay beside him, legs intertwined with his own and one arm flung over his bare mid-torso. The crisp moonlight shone mysticly over her nude form, running lightly with bare feet over her hair, face, breasts. Stirring very familiar passions within his heart as he watched.  
  
Instead of acting with those passions, Shinji pulled up the covers and gently slipped out from his lover's grasp; standing into the cool night air with a whimsical feel about him. He felt at peace for the first time in many months. And for once when he woke: his kidneys and back did not bother him.  
  
It was a moment of perfection.  
  
That was ruined when Shinji strode into his livingroom.  
  
"Have you dreamed lately, Shinji Ikari?"  
  
He screamed at the boy and his raven, a soulless scream that cried damnation and helplessness to the tormentors that elicited its wakening. The boy grinned at him. A sick, twisted grin that shone with madness and hints of something dire and dreadful. The raven cackled with delight at Shinji's terror-stricken face before he slumped to his knees.  
  
Then, Shinji blinked. And they were gone.  
  
The door smashed open.  
  
"SHINJI!" Seldon charged into the room with his hands held low, grasping some object that he couldn't see in the dim moonlight. Seldon soon spotted him and rushed for the slumping boy. "Where is she?"  
  
"W-what? Who?"  
  
"Sohryu! WHERE IS SHE?!" Seldon shouted into his confused face. When Shinji didn't answer Seldon took him by the shoulders and shook him, his head lolling listlessly back and forth on his neck in a dollish, detached fashion. "WHERE IS SHE SHINJI!"  
  
"Shinji? What's going on?"  
  
Both men turned to see Asuka step through the doorway, clad in the sheet like a Roman toga, rubbing at her eyes to free them from the grasp of sandy grit. Seldon shoved Shinji backwards and stood straight, one hand coming up to point the object he had been holding at the auburn goddess.  
  
It was a luger.  
  
"NO!" Seldon shot Asuka twice through the chest and once through her middle, tossing her back like a rag doll and throwing her to the floor in a heap of blood-soaked cloth and nude skin. Shinji was only finishing his plea when Seldon took aim again and pumped her dead frame with two more nine millimeter rounds, both through her beautiful face.  
  
Her head was splattered across the room.  
  
In the silence that followed, the only thing Shinji could hear was the soft tink-tink of the last ammunition casing as it hit the floor and bounced to a stop.  
  
"Y-you killed her..." he said, his voice flat with shock.  
  
Seldon lowered the gun to his side and turned towards Shinji. "She was sent by SEELE. You know who SEELE is don't you?" Shinji didn't nod. "Of course you do. Asuka was sent to kill you Shinji. SEELE sent her to kill you."  
  
"Why? Why would she do that?"  
  
Seldon shook his head and shrugged, "I don't know. Power, fame, money...revenge. It doesn't matter; I've got to get you out of here before her backup arrives to finish the job." Seldon leaned down to pick the slack- boned Shinji off the floor and was surprised.  
  
Shinji barreled off the ground and smashed into the unsuspecting Seldon before he even had a chance to blink and say, 'Mother of God defend me now.' The pair toppled backwards across the nearby couch, Seldon putting in just enough force to have Shinji come up on bottom when they sprang off and ended up going through the coffee table. Glass shattered and crunched as Shinji and Seldon smashed through the table with their combined mass and then tinkled together as they continued to roll about the floor.  
  
Finally, Shinji came up top and delivered a rapid flurry of punches to Seldon's face. Bone crunched and gave way under the surprising force of his fists, and the older man's head made sickeningly hollow sounds as it repeatedly bashed against the wooden floorboards below it.  
  
A kick to his back sent Shinji screaming to his hands and knees, and a knee to his ribs forced him off of Seldon totally. But as he rolled away his hands collected up the very thing that had been used to kill his love. The luger.  
  
The weapon gleamed coldly in the pristine light of the moon as Shinji leveled it at Seldon, who was feebly wiping at the pudding mess of his face. Seldon stopped his futile wiping as he noticed Shinji, or more precise: the gun Shinji pointed at him.  
  
Both men cautiously stood together, Shinji never wavering with the luger for an instant as he rose to his feet.  
  
"Shinji," Seldon said, his hands raised above his shoulders. "I had to do it. She was going to kill you. You have to believe me."  
  
"Oh really! When was she going to kill me? Before or after WE MADE LOVE TOGETHER!?"  
  
Seldon flinched at the shout and then gestured to the window. "Listen to me, you just have to trust me Shinji. If we don't get out of here soon, her backup will arrive and kill the both of us! You have to come with me...Shinji!"  
  
"You lie! You're fucking lying!"  
  
Seldon became pleading, lowering his hands and pointing back and forth between them. "Shinji, you know who I am. Look at where I live. Why would I live here if I was who I was? Hun? I was put here. I was put here to protect you from SEELE."  
  
Tears were stinging at Shinji's eyes, rolling down in waves to sting at the corners of his mouth and along the many, small gashes along his face and neck from where the glass had cut him. "No....Nooooooo!"  
  
"Shinji, put the gun down. We need to get out of here. Please put the gun down," Seldon begged him, making gentle lowering motions with his hands. Outside, Shinji heard several cars pull up into the apartment's drive. Then several doors slammed shut. The front door was kicked in and footsteps rushed up the stairs. "That's them Shinji! We have to leave!"  
  
A stiff breeze wafted through the apartment, whipping the bloody sheet that covered Asuka's cooling body. Shinji saw this and sobbed long and hard, Seldon tried to make soothing noises and took two steps forward as if he was going to comfort the crying man.  
  
Shinji pulled the luger up straight and pointed it directly at Seldon's head.  
  
Seldon stopped, his face the picture of fright. "Shinji....don't--"  
  
The gun flashed and boomed harsh echoes into the night, the bullet entered through Seldon's open mouth and blasted through the back of his skull. Bone, blood, and gore splashed across the wall behind him. His eyes rolled up into his head and for a moment more, he remained standing. Then the body went limp and he twisted around, showing the massive hole that once was the back of his head. A dull thump was the only sound to announce his passing from one world to the next.  
  
"You killed Asuka..." Shinji knew he was going into shock. And he knew that Asuka was dead. But there was one thing that even the numbing shock couldn't faze even one iota. Without Asuka, Shinji knew he didn't want to live.  
  
The door shuddered underneath a lively kick. Someone beyond it shouted out something to Shinji as he turned the luger over in his palms to study it. He ignored it though, and sat down for what would likely be the last time he would ever be there to use it.  
  
Quickly, he raised the gun to his mouth and firmly put the muzzle up to the roof of his mouth. He had one shot left, and it would be for him. His finger tightened on the trigger, easing it back to the firing point that would end his shitty life and take him to Heaven to be with his love once again.  
  
The last thing he saw before closing his eyes was a book. An old book that he had been reading a few weeks before this all started. It read: FOUNDATION AND EMPIRE.  
  
Shinji closed his eyes and pulled back the trigger further. Just before the end of it all, the door shattered and flew inwards. The three police officers behind that door shouted out for him to drop the weapon, but all they heard in response was the heart-stopping click of the trigger pulled to.  
  
All Shinji heard though, was this:  
  
"Have you dreamed lately, Shinji Ikari?"  
  
CLICK.  
  
***  
  
A door opened, then slid shut with a metal grind.  
  
Footsteps. A chair pulled back.  
  
A thick folder landing on a hard table. A man's cough.  
  
"Hello, do you know where you are?"  
  
Shinji nodded.  
  
"Where are you?"  
  
"In a hospital."  
  
"Do you know what kind of hospital?"  
  
Shinji nodded.  
  
"Do you know why I am here?"  
  
Shinji nodded.  
  
"My name is Shiwazaki. I'll ask a few questions and then you'll be free to go."  
  
Shinji nodded.  
  
"Do you know why you are here?"  
  
"I read the files."  
  
"Do you know, why you are here?"  
  
"Yes. I am here because I'm fucking insane."  
  
Scribbling, pen scratching over paper.  
  
"Do you realize why people call you insane?"  
  
"Because for four years I was living as a man named Isaac Asimov Seldon."  
  
"Do you know where that name came from?"  
  
"From the books that I have been reading."  
  
More notes.  
  
"And what about the other name of this man? This identity you named Seldon?"  
  
Shinji sighed. "You read the files?"  
  
"I know that they found a history book with the passages about William Robert Kitchens hi-lighted in you apartment. Along with your well-worn collection of Asimov's Foundation series. But I want you to answer that for me. So please humor me from now on."  
  
Shinji sighed again, "Sure."  
  
"Do you know what happened to William Kitchens?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Elaborate please."  
  
Shinji felt a surge of anger at having to answer these useless questions. "William Kitchens restored order in his hometown by use of force. Exactly one year after the military relief arrived, he died by use of another force."  
  
"Yes...a man shot him in the back as he was walking out of his favorite bookstore. At his trial he said that, 'The monster killed my mother and everyone applauded him for it. Now you'll kill me and everyone will applaud you for that too. Don't we live in a sick fucking world?'"  
  
"They hanged him for that."  
  
"Yes they did Mr. Ikari. Now, is Asuka Langley Sohryu dead?"  
  
"Is she?"  
  
"For your information, she is not. But the important thing is that you know that. Is she dead?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Did anyone die that night in your home, two years ago Mr. Ikari?"  
  
A silence.  
  
"Did anyone die, Mr. Ikari?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Who fired the six shots from the weapon, a luger that you own?"  
  
"I did."  
  
"Did you fire them at anyone, Mr. Ikari?"  
  
"No."  
  
More notes.  
  
"In your statement three months ago, you mentioned to us about a boy with a three-eyed raven. Were these figures present in the room when you fired off your luger?"  
  
"They were at the beginning...then they disappeared."  
  
"Have you seen them anymore?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Mr. Ikari?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
More notes.  
  
"What do they want from you?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Shifting cloth, the man was looking at his watch.  
  
"One more question before you go Mr. Ikari."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Have you dreamed lately? Shinji Ikari?"  
  
Shinji stared at the elderly psychologist in his white lab frock and his small, square spectacles with a blank, frightened look. The man pulled back in astonishment and then wrote down a large paragraph of notations before looking back up at the twenty-three year old man.  
  
"You will be advised to take your prescriptions every day, without fail. If you cease to take the medication then you will most certainly have a recurrence of the delusions. That may prove fatal to you considering the last time we found you."  
  
He was referring to a time a year ago when they found him trying to hang himself.  
  
"And we have a letter for you, it was found amongst your possessions at the time of your...admittance. But after reading the information it disclosed, we deemed it best not to burden you with it until you were of a more--"  
  
"Secure mind?" Shinji butted in.  
  
The doctor had grace enough to look sheepish, he slid over the thin brown letter to Shinji and then stood. "You may go after you read the letter, the door will be open for you and a fresh set of clothing will be provided. Your keys are waiting with the clothing, and a taxi has been hired to take you home." The doctor watched Shinji for a while before turning away. "It's been nice to work with you, Mr. Ikari."  
  
The door ground shut after the doctor, leaving Shinji alone with the letter.  
  
Shinji picked it up and studied the typing.  
  
'JSSDF...the same letter those two officers gave to Seldo--...Me, back after Christmas...' Shinji tore open the letter and scanned past the thick line of formalities to the actual meaning behind the letter.  
  
"Dear Mr. Ikari. We deeply regret to inform you of the passing of Sergeant Kensuke Aida, on this day: December Twenty-Fifth, of the year 2021. Sergeant Aida..."  
  
Shinji couldn't read through the tears.  
  
***  
  
Shinji asked the taxi to take him to his old club.  
  
It wasn't too late in the afternoon, so his old boss would be setting up the shop for the night's partying. The cab deposited him there and sped off so fast that Shinji barely had time to close the door. He looked about the empty sidewalk and then at the building.  
  
He blinked in sad recognition.  
  
The club was closed down.  
  
Looking about, Shinji failed to spy any available cabs that could take him home. Not feeling up to the challenge of his ten mile walk back home, he decided to wait a while and eat something in the local restaurants. His wallet was still full of the hundred thousand yen from that payment two years back from the boss, and he hadn't been able to spend it at the hospital.  
  
Food would be good.  
  
Shinji walked into the nearest place, a bar that doubled with a restaurant to do a fairly good trade in business at all hours of the day and night. Just as he was entering the bar was setting up to do its trade. A quick look through the restaurant proved it to be full; unlucky as he was, he had chosen to enter one of the most popular Kyoto restaurants. Seeing his furtive glances around, the waiter gestured towards the bar and handed over a menu.  
  
"I'll send a waitress over to take the order."  
  
"Thanks," Shinji quickly slid onto a stool and flipped through the menu. 'Choices, choices,' he though as he analyzed the myriad of dishes, side- items, and appetizers that were presented to him with full text descriptions and small, window pictures.  
  
"Can I help you?" A light, sing-song voice asked him from behind the shielding menu.  
  
Shinji dropped the menu and was struck breathless.  
  
"Hi there, my name's Mana," the short-haired redhead positively beamed with happiness as she smiled at him. "Can I help you?"  
  
Shinji found himself smiling as well, setting the menu down and gazing dreamily on the most beautiful woman he had seen in six years. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe."  
  
~~~~  
  
AN: Alright, now I can sense your confusion and the inevitable question, namely being: "...What tha hell went on there?!"  
  
Here's the answer: Shinji Ikari went insane. And think about it, wouldn't you go insane too? After going through everything he has? I listed out everything he suffered near the top of the story. Think about it. Going insane probably is the least he would have done.  
  
As to Seldon: He was created by Shinji. To be more precise, Seldon IS Shinji, and Shinji is Seldon. Whenever Seldon is dealing with others, that is really Shinji. But Shinji believes (and everyone else as well) that he is Isaac Asimov Seldon, formerly of Augusta, Georgia. Obviously he is of Asian descent, but he explains this away by telling those that he deals with about his immigrant grandparents.  
  
Asuka was another figment of Shinji's insanity. Just fulfilling out the desires in his dreams.  
  
The Boy and his Raven...Well...that's something for you to wonder about. Isn't it? 


	6. Madness of a Pilot

The Seldon Planner Presents  
  
An Etherworlds Production  
  
~~~Madness of a Pilot~~~~  
  
A door opens, a white door. Padded with thick, manufactured materials that a man who was indeed crazy himself, invented in some strange, lucid thought that made the man millions. He died later, trapped by his own, maddening walls of padded white cloth.  
  
The door closes.  
  
"Good morning, Mr. Ikari. I hope you slept well."  
  
"I didn't."  
  
"Really? Why not?"  
  
"I didn't take my pills."  
  
"Mr. Ikari, you know that you should not do that. The pills are there for your benefit. They are there to help you. Do you know that? Good. You shouldn't ever do that again, Mr. Ikari. Do you know why I am here? No? I am here to talk to you, to understand you. To try and learn why you saw the things that you said you did. Do you remember those things...the things that you told us?"  
  
"I do."  
  
"Do you still think that those things really happened?"  
  
"Do you think they happened?"  
  
"...Mr. Ikari. The question was directed at you. Do you think those things really occured?"  
  
"No."  
  
Pen scraping across paper. "Mr. Ikari, you said you did not sleep well because you did not take your pills. You've had sleeping troubles before, even with the pills. What made your troubles so hard this time?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Mr. Ikari?"  
  
"I saw my son."  
  
The small, wooden chair placed in the room for the doctor creaked as he leaned back. "Mr. Ikari. You don't have a son."  
  
"I don't. I do not. But he was here. Last night. He spoke to me. He told me things."  
  
"What did he tell you?"  
  
"...bad things," said the patient in barely a whisper. "Bad things."  
  
"Can you tell me what he said?"  
  
"...yes."  
  
The doctor pulled out a small recorder and turned it on. The patient took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Steeling himself. "He came last night, right after the guard made his rounds. I was sleepy then, getting ready to lie down and...maybe have a dream about...her. He came then, just as my eyes began to close, opening the door just like you did and walking in. The door was bright, really bright. Like all the lights in the world were set behind that door and tilted to shine through at my son. It was so bright I couldn't see his face, no, I could see one thing about his face. His eyes. They were grey, a deep grey that twisted and swirled and danced around the darkness in the center of his eyes. They were bright against the darkness of his face. Unnaturally bright. And on his shoulder there was a bird, a raven. Black all around but for her eyes, three eyes of red. They frightened me.  
  
"'Do not be afraid,' my son told me. 'I am here for you father.' I told my son that he was not mine. That I had no son. 'That is true, father, and nor will you have me. I was your son, and now I am gone. The time of my birth has come and gone, and will never be seen again. But I am not here to tell you these things. I am here to show you something, father. Come with me. Come.' My son extended his hand and took mine in it. It seemed so small, against my palm. And cold. So terribly cold. Like the bottom soil of a grave at midnight in winter.  
  
"He pulled me up and led me through the door, that terribly bright door. And as I went through it seemed as though all of my skin was burning off. I felt my nerves frying, I smelt my hair scorching, and then we came through, my son and I and his raven. Who's name was Time.  
  
"We came out to a place of many sorrows. A land just like our own but different. 'Look father,' my son said to me. 'There you are, with my mother. And there is the father of the Saviour, come again to defend the world against all the evils that beset it. And there is the evil themselves. Can you see them father? Shall we go up higher?'  
  
"When my son said that, I looked down and saw that we were no longer firmly set upon the Earth. That we were flying high into the air and looking down upon the whole of the Earth. And there, high above all the clouds of this world, I could see...everything. I could see the death that had lingered upon the world like a black stain amongst the greens, blue, and browns of nature. I could see the unnatural clouds that twisted and twitched under my gaze as though they were alive.  
  
"'Can you see them now, father? Can you see what they do?' I looked and saw much. I saw their fears, their joys, their sorrows. I could see their pain. The raven, Time, came across to my shoulder and pecked my cheek, directing my gaze up. There I could see, in a line straight across from us, a boy much like mine own son. He too was sheathed in shadows, and his eyes were greyer than the clouds that writhed upon the Earth below. In his hand there lay a staff that was twice as tall as myself, topped by a twisted and demonized skull of a rabbit that has jutting, broken teeth and silver ears that were badly mangled and stiff. As I watched, the boy lifted his hand and stuck down with his staff upon an unseen floor that rippled like water.  
  
"'Go back,' the boy said in a voice of an old man. 'You do not belong here! Go back!' My son shied away from the other boy and peeked around my hips. Time stood passively upon my shoulder, watching with ageless red eyes upon an ageless boy. I could here echoing whispers around us then, shadows of men and women long gone. They whispered, 'Go back, go back! Belong not ye here.' Again the boy struck his staff, 'Back!'  
  
"'Time turned her face to me, and I looked at her. 'Up,' she told me. 'Up?' I replied. 'Up," said my son, who cowered by my thigh. I turned my head, and saw there a single star of unimaginable brightness. It twinkled and winkled and drew my body forward. My son's hand clenched tightly to mine, and together we all lifted away to the star, shining brightly in the light.  
  
"Hands clutched at us, grabbed at us, yelling that me must not be further on. That we should return to the lands whence was bourne us, and not visit that which we had yet to go on. My son and I ignored them, and soon we left them behind, up and up and up we went, out of sight and out of mind.  
  
"We came to that star, and lingered. Then it drew us in, and the fires of its light burned us again. I screamed and I cried, yelling that we should go back. My son tugged and my hand, the raven at my back. Again I felt my skin sear, and again I smelt my hair burn. Then the light faded and I opened my eyes.  
  
"Together, we were in a room, small and cramped. Two desks were there, two beds, and a lamp. At one desk, in a chair, there sat a man who stared at a blank, white screen. He had long hair, glasses, and wore a tan cap. He looked very tired, he looked very sad. 'Who is he?' I asked of my son. 'He is the man who is our maker, and our killer. He is the builder and the destroyer. He is the binder of all things. He is the one who decides all our things for us, and leaves nothing to chance.'  
  
"'Why is he sad?'  
  
"'He is sad because that is his life. Just like you are sad because that is your life. All life is sad, even the best parts.' I asked my son why that was. He answered, 'The best parts in life are there to keep us alive. But in our saddest moments, even the good in our lives only drives us to further grief. This is such a time for our creator; he is remembering the good of his past, only to find that he is sadder for recalling it. Watch him and remember, father, for you will never see him again, in the life or in the death.'  
  
"'Why?'  
  
"'Our creator only has so much life to live, father. Even though to us it seems liken unto an eternity of life. That is how these things are. We live, die, and are born again, and he seems to remain eternal throughout. But, our creator ages still. Soon, he will die, just like you will, and be buried by other creators and makers of the worlds. But when that happens, so too will we die, and never again will our memories rise and take form and substance. Mark him well then, father, for you are watching the face of age creep over the creator, and soon, all will be black.'  
  
"'Now you must wake, wake, wake,' quothe the raven. 'You will see us, nevermore.'  
  
The doctor waited a moment before turning off the recorder. "You think you have seen God? Mr. Ikari?"  
  
"He is a god."  
  
"And his death will be the ending of the world?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
The doctor wrote something down, then stood up. "Are you going to take your pills now, Mr. Ikari?"  
  
"I will."  
  
"Thank you, Mr. Ikari."  
  
The door opened. The door closed. 


	7. Last Day of a Pilot

I-I can't write an intro for this.  
  
Just, read it please.  
  
The Seldon Planner Presents:  
  
A One-Shot Production.  
  
Dedicated to Shinji Ikari.  
  
Last Days of a Pilot.  
  
It was raining again.  
  
It always seemed to rain, up in the mountains. Almost every week they had another downpour from the ever-gray clouds that hung above their heads.  
  
Of course, that's why they chose to live their in the first place. They chose to live in that torrential downpour of rain solely because of where they would be living.  
  
Sure it was hard to get food up to their house, sure it was hard to pay off their electricity bills. But they were completely alone up here. Cut off from the rest of the world and left alone to do whatever they wanted.  
  
Shinji stepped out of his small house and admired the view he enjoyed at this altitude. Birds chirped and sang as the ever bright sun woke them from their decidedly wet slumber.  
  
The rain never stopped the birds from singing either, that was another benefit.  
  
One Shinji always enjoyed.  
  
He was getting old now, his sixtieth birthday was just last week. He could feel it in his bones as he woke every morning, that subtle tingle and small ache that always plagued his back and ankles as he took that first step out of his comfortably warm bed.  
  
That didn't stop him though, he had things to do.  
  
And views to admire.  
  
It had been hard at first, trying to survive Third Impact. It had been even worse when Asuka had woken from her deathly sleep, and having him straddling her...choking her.  
  
Shinji let his gaze fall to the steaming cup of tea that warmed his hand. A small pang of guilt surfaced in his chest as he recalled that one instant. It was the one thing he was truly sorry of doing in his entire life. His one regret, his one faltering hesitation.  
  
Shinji shook his head and cleared the memories away, it was so long ago after all...and he would soon never have to worry about it ever again.  
  
Like poor Misato. Now dead and buried nearly fifteen years...alongside the empty grave of her one-time lover, Ryoji Kaji. Life was harsh, and cruel. And then again, life was benevolent and kind. He himself had experienced both spectrums of life many times.  
  
A smile crept across his face as he remembered the birth of his one and only child Rei. His only daughter, his one ultimate pride and joy. Named after the sister he never knew...and always cherished. She was off on her job now, supervising several financial companies in several different countries. Rei was very wealthy, but she never forgot to stop by and visit once a month. She may be busy...but she valued her family. And loved her father.  
  
A sudden, sharp pain flashed across Shinji's chest. Causing him to wheez a bit and haltingly collapse in a chair. In a few moments the pain was gone, and he gently massaged the area with his old and wrinkled hand. His own father...he, he had never returned from the ring of LCL. Several people never did, as far as they knew.  
  
Ritsuko Akagi.  
  
Maya Ibuki.  
  
Makoto Hyuuga.  
  
Shigeru Aoba.  
  
Kouzo Fuyutski.  
  
...Gendo Ikari.  
  
None of them had ever returned, and Rei...well, she would never return at all. Shinji had accepted that during those final, few, precious moments he had with her during the end of Third Impact.  
  
And now...now everyone was leaving him behind. Toji had died several years back, car accident. As he could dimly recall.  
  
Kensuke...he died shortly after he had returned from the sea. He had volunteered for the army just as another war had broken out in central Russia.  
  
The letter, addressed to him of all people, said that he had died bravely. Defending his retreating comrades with the fifty caliber machine gun from atop a disabled APC. The letter said that he had died when several rockets slammed into the APC...it said that he suffered no pain.  
  
He had been awarded a medal, which Shinji had accepted for him, posthumously. It was the highest wartime decoration a soldier could have been awarded. It was what Kensuke had always wanted to have...and he got it, by giving his life.  
  
Japan won that war, eventually.  
  
Hikari had just died recently, her heart giving out after living for so long without the love of her life. Her many children still greeted their "Uncle Ikari" with fond memories at the funeral.  
  
He had received notices from several of his former classmates families, telling of one funeral or another being held at such and such a time. He tried to attend as many as possible, but it was overwhelming him.  
  
He hadn't received one from Asuka, thank God for small miracles. Though, he wasn't entirely sure that she would want him to know that she had died before the "Invincible" Shinji Ikari had passed on.  
  
Another sharp pain wracked his body, but it was fainter than the first one. Easier to ignore.  
  
The rain made such a beautiful sound as it flowed down his roof. It looked so lovely as it fell from high above, only to drift slowly down to Earth.  
  
So lovely.  
  
*** "Mrs. Sohryu?"  
  
"Yes? Can I help you?" Asuka Langley Sohryu glanced up from her desk and leveled her infamous gaze on the unwitting mail boy that had dared to interrupt her. She was getting on with her years, but her hair still held that lustrous auburn color that brightened any dark room. And her body was still in top shape and near-perfect form for one pushing that golden age of sixty. At odd times, she wondered how many years she had left before she would loose that perfect figure...such as now. She chided herself for thinking in such a way and then motioned for the boy to come forward.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"A letter just arrived for you Ma'am. Priority class."  
  
Asuka's glare could have burned a hole in that offensive little scrap, "Leave it. Thank you."  
  
The mail boy nodded and followed her instructions. He fled as soon as he could from the presidential office, she didn't like to have her quiet time invaded. As all of her employee's knew well.  
  
The letter sat there for the rest of the day. And just as she was closing up her drawers, Asuka noticed it once again. Slowly, she lifted the letter up and read the return address.  
  
Her eyes grew wide and her fingers scrambled as she hastily ripped the envelope open.  
  
She read the letter three times.  
  
And then she cried.  
  
***  
  
A week later, Asuka walked calmly through the foggy mass of granite markers. Her heels sank slightly in the soft, wet ground of the cemetery. The air seemed to be liquid. Her hair hung in wet tangles.  
  
Soon she came across the newer section, she began to trail down through the markers until she came across the last headstone in a long row.  
  
Ikari, Shinji  
  
A Pilot, A Savior, A Father.  
  
A Man.  
  
Never forgotten, but forever lost.  
  
Rest in Peace.  
  
Asuka felt tears well up in her eyes as she stood watching that headstone. She felt a great darkness well up in her soul as she read and re-read the elegy.  
  
"...You...Idiot. You've gone and left me again...and now I'll never get you back..."  
  
Her hand flew to her mouth as she stumbled over the last of her words. It was painful, remembering. It always was painful.  
  
"E-Excuse me...do I know you?" a soft voice asked from the side.  
  
Asuka quickly turned her head and looked at a small square of white cloth gently proffered in a gloved hand. She gratefully took the proffered handkerchief and wiped away her tears with it.  
  
"I-I don't know, what is your name."  
  
"Rei...Rei Ikari," came the soft, mousey reply.  
  
Asuka suddenly snapped her head around and looked sharply at the girl. She was just under Asuka's height, possibly weighing a little less than her as well. She had deep brown hair, and a hard jawline. Her hair was cut short, and it curled inwards at the cheeks so that the sides of her hair trailed along the lines of her jaw. Her lips were a soft, light pink...and her eyes.  
  
They were a deep, ocean blue.  
  
"Your...you're his daughter. Aren't you?"  
  
The girl nodded, knowing instantly who the strange, red haired lady was talking about.  
  
Asuka gave a short, choked laugh, "H-he never told me that he had a daughter." She started to weep again.  
  
The girl closed the distance and wrapped Asuka up in a hug, "You knew him very well...didn't you?"  
  
Asuka continued to cry for a moment before she could muster her response, "If certain things hadn't happened the way they did...I would have been your m-mother."  
  
Rei let her eyes close and she tightened the hug on the crying woman.  
  
"We should go...he wouldn't want you to cry anymore."  
  
"Y-Yeah...the idiot would probably try to come back and apologize for it," Asuka withdrew from the hug and dabbed at her nose with the handkerchief. Rei slipped an arm through Asuka's and gently pulled her away from the headstone.  
  
"Come on...let's go find some place to talk?"  
  
"I-I'd like that," Asuka agreed.  
  
The pair started walking off, but before they moved out of eyesight of the grave, Asuka turned back one more time. And she gasped.  
  
Shinji Ikari, standing with a thin and translucent Rei Ayanami, and one other...who looked for all purposes and intents like an older, more mature Rei; waved goodbye to the retreating pair.  
  
The two women faded, and left only Shinji. He glanced once over his shoulder and then turned back to face the moving Asuka once more.  
  
Even at the distance she was, Asuka could see the tears rolling out of his eyes. She shivered once as his voice, so soft and delicate, drifted across the air and into her ear.  
  
"Goodbye Asuka. I await you on the other side...I love you. I always loved you. Please take care of Rei for me..." And then he was gone as well.  
  
"Are you okay?" Rei asked.  
  
Asuka blinked once, twice, "Did you-?"  
  
Rei stopped and turned halfway to face the startled woman, "Did I, what?"  
  
Asuka glanced to the younger girls confused face, then back to the grave. A bank of fog rolled across the view and blocked it out.  
  
"Never...mind. Lets go."  
  
Rei nodded her agreement and then turned back.  
  
Tears poured out of both of their eyes as they walked to their respective cars. And across the masses of granite headstones, two voices could be heard with crystal clarity as they discussed a certain, former, Evangelion pilot.  
  
Shinji smiled from overhead.  
  
AN: I don't believe I did this. My God, I'm actually crying for this! I-I'm crying over this...and I can't help it. I just can't help it. I started this out just to prove to myself that I could actually do a one-shot fanfic. I didn't expect it to be this damn sad! I just didn't. By the way, for those who will wonder where the romance is in this...well, let's just say that it's the kind of settings that romantics imagine about. Like me. Seldon. 


	8. Wars of a Pilot

The Seldon Planner Presents  
  
An Etherworlds Production  
  
Wars of a Pilot  
  
~~~~  
  
"-Vile and unprecipitated attacks upon our great nation have come as a great affront, not only to the Emperor, but to our people as a whole! The militant nation of India has by and far been the gross violator of countless thousands of United Nations regulations against the militarization clauses in the New Charter Treaty, and has performed the most horrific tests against the men and women of conquered China and the Tibetan Republic. Its use of forbidden dirty atomics have rendered vast tracts of lower Southeast Asia into inhospitable wastelands, and has ruined those lands for thousands of years to come. Now they are encroaching upon our rightfully ceded lands of Eastern Manchuria, and all UN orders to cease and desist have failed. It is up to you, our people, to rise up and defend your homeland's provinces! These unwarranted aggressions must be ended, or India will spread like a plague upon the whole of the world! Join the Imperial Japanese Army today, and help bring this evil to its knees!"  
  
Aikiko Matsuski turned away from the crowd of sycophantic onlookers and pushed her way through the crowd towards the entrance to the dingy, gothish building this mindless crowd had gathered at. The History Center wasn't the cleanest, nor the biggest building of the Kyoto University, but cleanliness and immensity wasn't what made the building so impressive. It was the sense of age, the feeling of oppressing time that made this dark edifice so present in the mind. Inside, a person felt as though the very indefinite presence of the many and varied historical artifacts about them were pressing in around the flesh, hemming you in with an indefinable force of latent sentience.  
  
Weapons, armor, clothing (rotting in some instances, well preserved in others), books, books, books. Books in Japanese, English, French, Russian, German, some in the nearly extinct language of Chinese. Pictures of old faces, young faces, faces of war, faces of death, of age, of pain. Artifacts from all across Japan and from scattered lands of the world. Japan was a repository for the world's history, now. The United States nearly lost everything fifty years ago, when the great flood of the melting Antarctic icecap washed across their densely peopled eastern shoreline. Many treasures of the old world were now underwater, slowly crumbling away as fish pecked at their facades and barnacles gnawed at their cases. Japan was still a power, more than that, it was one of the very few World Powers left on the Earth. America was still suffering the loss of just slightly less of their population and most of their high refineries. England was awash and suffering just as much as America, if not more. Germany was slowly gaining in power, recently freed from their tremendous restrictions of a century. Russia...was still Russia. Even moreso because of their disastrous attempts to assert themselves as a power in the early 2020's. Israel was hemmed on all sides by unfriendly nations; nations held in check from destroying Israel solely because of the nuclear power of that small nation. Egypt was a decadent capital of the old world, Africa was falling into a disarray of warlords and clans. South Africa was reaching new heights of human barbarism, and the United Nations, now located in Paris, had about as much power as a sheet of paper stood up against a tank.   
  
Japan was there, a giant of industry and production, a leader of men and nations, and the only one with a large, trained, equipped, and highly motivated army that had been honed for decades by the Angel Attacks and the subsequent Brush-Fire wars that resulted after the fall of the Russian armies in 2022.  
  
Then there was India. India. The strangest nation on the Earth, at present. A nation of pacifists, suddenly turned into warmongerers. No one knew what happened to them that set them off into a crusade of slaughter, but something certainly happened. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tibet, and China fell to them in the space of three years. The UN was powerless to stop anything, let alone a strong nation hell-bent on war, and the other nations of the world were either too far off to worry about India or too concerned with their own power struggles to do anything about it.  
  
It seemed so far off, though, here in the pressures of the past. Indeed, the whole Indian conflicts were a small concern for Aikiko as she stood amongst the long, planned, archaic halls of the History Department with their linings of old, dusty wood and musty cases of back-lit glass that held examples from all of Humanities far-flung cultures. There were a few students here, studying mostly, some were doing much the same as she was, others were passing through to classes. A few older men and women lingered in the halls as well, mostly watching the ancient relics as they lay, hung or suspended, in their walled homes. Some were staring so intently that Aikiko half-suspected that those viewers were waiting to see if long-dead ghosts of former owners came to claim their lost affects, yet only being able to muster enough physical force to only tilt or shuffle them a bit.  
  
Aikiko had only a few minutes to stare wondrously at the priceless collections of knick-knacks and antiques before she too became one of the many students just "breezing through" on their way to class. A turn here, a door there and she walked into class only a little out of breath and slightly flushed of face. The professor was just calling the class together, so she took a seat and listened to the lecture.  
  
History was Aikiko's minor, her major being something just as archaic and meshed with rhetorical dogma and arcane theorems, the study of Literature. Both were surprisingly similar in their composition and makeup, and both went nearly hand-in-hand when you studied the two together. Literature was, has been, and always will be impacted by the changes of past, present, and future history. So, together, the two subjects were vast helps with one another. Many times Aikiko had been saved in her exams by recalling to mind just what was occurring in history at the time of such-and-such, novel (A); and likewise, the recalling of novel (A) helped her remember the changes and happenings of History.  
  
So she sat through the class, diligently took her notes and answered the Professor's questions (if not aloud then in her head, just to make sure she knew the answer to heart). The study of the course was of recent times, in other words: the happenings of fifty years ago to the near-present, some ten years back. When the class ended, the students stood to leave, but the Professor had one more thing to tell them.  
  
"Oh! Yes, one more thing to say before you're dismissed. Three weeks from now you have a paper due. The standard format and citation is still in application for this one, so don't come asking me what you need. The topic you will be allowed to determine yourself, as long as it deals and is relevant with the subject period of what we are currently discussing in class. From 2000-2045 is your area of history to work with. I will have a sign-up sheet outside my office, which means that only ONE person can have a single, particular topic. First one's there will have the first pick of the litter, but don't feel the need to rush. There are plenty of topics for you to select from in this area, even if some of them require a bit of digging to get to."  
  
"Sir?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Is this going to be an argumentative thesis?"  
  
"Uh...it can be. It can also be a statement of fact, which, might I remind you, you must back up substantially for me to accept it (Most especially if the fact is very obvious). It can also be a counter-argument, a comparison/contrast, pretty much anything you want it to be really. All you have to do is back it up! All right, dismissed."  
  
Aikiko wandered out into the halls after the flood of students petered down. She didn't pay much attention to where she was walking, instead she wracked her mind for an idea. 'What to do, what to do? I can't pick that, that's just too simple-stupid. Half a dozen of these guys will already be outside Professor's door writing it down. I can't do that one either, there's hardly enough information about it to write a ether-net page summary. What to do? What to do?'  
  
Wrapped up in her thoughts, Aikiko blindly stumbled into one of the many visitors that frequented the halls of the History Building, spilling several papers from her leather folder when she did. She staggered out an apology to the elderly man, reaching out a gentle hand to steady him as he reeled on his black hickory cane. The man recovered quickly, ran a smoothing hand across his greying hair and righted himself securely on his cane.  
  
"No, no...don't worry yourself. I'm fine. Thank you for asking." The man mumbled a third placation and turned away from Aikiko, heading for the large, olden doors with their rippling glass that was yellow from over eighty years of age. He walked carefully, his cane keeping pace with his opposite leg and supporting it gently as it set down. Aikiko thought it a bit strange too, that the man was wearing a suit that was almost out of fashion, having a full collar and being made of a thicker material than would be comfortable for the Kyoto heat, and thought it stranger to see the odd hat the man placed upon his head just as he reached the doors. It was a short thing that came up from the back to run down to the very brim of the coverlet, held in place there by some fastening device. It was the same dark-grey colour of the suit, and looked to be of the same material too.  
  
She lost sight of him as he stepped out into the bright noonish sun, and soon he was almost out of her mind too. Aikiko bent to retrieve her papers and gathered them into a crumpled handful to stuff into her folder later. When she rose, she noticed that there was a fresh, white flower sitting on a pedestal next to her. The flower was a rose, rare, not the rose but the colour of the rose. White. Not many people cared to keep or tend flowers these days, and certainly no one she knew of cultured white roses. People these days tended to keep roses red, and not cross-breed the seedlings to anything other than red.  
  
She touched the rose, to make sure it was indeed a real flower and not some cheap plastique, and then picked it up to gently breath in the scently aroma of the rare flower. When she lowered the plant, Aikiko recognized exactly where she was in the vast halls of history. It was a section dedicated to the brief reign of that arcane and mysterious organization that lasted for a short time of sixteen years, NERV.  
  
The hall was fairly dedicated to all of the happenings of and around NERV, which included vague suppositions and uncertain histories about what did and what is thought to have happened during the perilous times of the Angels. Aikiko had only studied a few parts of this historical period, ignoring it mostly for the more pressing and relevant issues presented to her in class by her more backwards-minded professors and TA's. The hallways was filled mostly with replicas and pictures of the actual instruments used by NERV in that now-ruined graveyard of Tokyo-3. The replicas were supposed to be in working condition, though certainly no one had ever seen them used, and the pictures were of the very few that could be released for public viewing. They mostly involved pictures of the people who worked there, of parts that were deemed to be non-restricted information, of the old war machines that were now long dismantled and decayed. Then there was a long section of the wall that was of a black marble, stretching a good two meters wide and three tall. In it were etched a countless number of names, a score were in English, the majority in Japanese. The first half of the tablets were filled, the rest were still blank.  
  
One portion, a small square of the stone that was framed off in the middle from the rest, was engraved with names in a sort of three pointed square, though it certainly had enough space to accommodate thirty that immediately followed it. Only three names occupied the stonework there: Ayanami, Rei, Nagisa, Kaoru, and Suzahara, Touji. Aikiko belatedly recognized the names as two of the esteemed, if enigmatic, Pilots of NERV. Looking over the long list of names, Aikiko also realized that this wall was a memorial.   
  
'Was this," Aikiko fondled the rose petals, 'for them?' She looked out the glass doors, unfruitfully trying to find the man who walked away, then gently set the rose down upon the solitary pedestal that waited, empty, before the monolithic list of engraven names.   
  
She had to run to her next class, and didn't make it before the Professor closed and locked the door.  
  
~~~~  
  
Two days later, Aikiko was asked by her Professor to stay a moment after lecture. When most of the students had gone, the Professor asked her about her choice of a topic. "Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, most of the information about this subject and these people have long been held back as classified information. And they do have valid reasons for holding this kind of stuff back from the general public, you realize. Many people still blame them for being the root cause of all our current troubles, and others would try to kill them if they knew they were still alive."  
  
"I want to try nonetheless, sir."  
  
The Professor studied her with his stony black eyes for a moment, then sighed and went over to his shoulder-pack. After a moment of rifling around he pulled out a thin book and passed it over to her. "This might be of some help to you, the government pulled the book out of print when they realized just exactly what it was saying, but more than a few copies managed to get out into circulation. Not many people realize that the book is a reality glossed over with fiction, but you get the general idea of what happened in that story. I would suggest that you slightly alter your thesis to doing a comparison/contrast between what this 'fiction' is and what the 'history' tells us. But, I'll tell you, you had best do a damn convincing job with this paper or I'm gonna have to dock you. Getting assistance on your paper from me is acceptable, but I'm really reaching out for you by giving you this book."  
  
"Thanks, Professor. I'll try my best." Aikiko carefully put the book in-between a space in her folder and began for the door, but the Professor called out once more and brought her up just as she was leaving. "One more thing, and this is really important: don't let anyone know that you have the book or that I gave it to you. And take care of it, okay?"  
  
Aikiko nodded and walked out, leaving the Professor to clean up his desk and pack everything away to go home. She turned down into the halls of the building and headed for the Tokyo-3 hall, hoping to find some useful information amongst the hundreds of trivialities along the walls.  
  
As she rounded the corner, Aikiko noticed a man in overalls by the large memorial near the center of the hall. A small kit of working tools was irreverently placed onto the memorial's pedestal, and he was presently rummaging around in the box with a dirty, dust-covered hand. Aikiko felt an irrational surge of anger at the man, but let it slide as curiosity crept up into her prescience. She walked up beside the man and politely greeted him.  
  
"What are you doing?" she asked, watching the man pull out a chisel.  
  
"Oh," he flipped the chisel around and studied a sheet of paper that lay next to his kit. "I've got another three names to put up on the wall, here. Just came in today, and the boss wants it done before I go on to recarving the Ikkido memorial's mantra."  
  
"These people," Aikiko leaned over to study the names. "They died?"  
  
The man laughed, "Yeah. People who go on this wall are pretty much dead if their name's up here. Some by old age, some by accidents, a few by murders and whatnots. Most are actually suicides, though. People just up and killing themselves as they get older or whatever. And a few, a very rare few," the man reached out and touched a name near the first part, an Akagi, Ritsuko. "We don't know what happened to them at all. All we know of them is that they went away, and have never come back. Well...after twenty years without a sign, we just go ahead and mark them down as dead, and usually they stay that way."  
  
"Usually?"  
  
"Well, one did reappear after a time." The man tapped on a single name, Hyuuga, Makoto. "This one, for instance. Just came out of nowhere. Didn't know where he'd been or where he was going."  
  
"What happened to him? And how do you know this?"  
  
The worker shrugged, "The guy died soon after, cancer. We know out of no real special reason. The government sees fit to notify us about these people from time to time. It's mainly their obituaries, of course. But special cases, like that guy, we get notified of in case we feel the need to fill up their names until their obituary arrives."  
  
"Did you fill up his name?"  
  
"We were going to, but the cancer caught him nearly right after he reappeared. Didn't have more than a two day lag between the first notification and the obituary. So we didn't even get the chance to do it."  
  
"What about others?"  
  
"Reappearing you mean? Yeah. We had two others. This guy here," Fuyutski, Kouzo "and this lady here." There was a small blank space in the long list of names that ran along. Aikiko hadn't even seen it until the worker had pointed directly to it. "We're not allowed to tell anyone her name until her death, though. So don't bother asking me about it."  
  
Aikiko sighed, a small spark of hope fading from her even as it had just begun to grow. "What about all that space," she gestured to the open, smooth end of the memorial.   
  
"That's for all the people that have yet to go on. Yeah, all that space is reserved and waiting for the people to die. It'll be sooner than I'd like to think about, though. Most of these people are in their fifties at least. A week or two doesn't go by that we don't receive a few names for the wall. Though, it wasn't as fast as it was when I first started carving in the names. We've already compiled a list of the people destined to hit this wall, and this is the exact amount of space we need to put every single name up on the wall, give or take a few centimeters."  
  
"That's...a lot of people."  
  
"Yeah. Well, it was a fairly big organization."  
  
"So this is the names of all the people who served in NERV, isn't it?"  
  
"All the dead ones, yep." The man reached up to tap at the large list of English names. "These are from America, at one of the NERV bases there. Not much is known about it, except the records of all the workers they had there. We only get an occasional English name now and then, most of these guys died all at the same time, from what we understand. And that is one of the few things we understand about that place."  
  
Aikiko had her pad out by then, and was hastily scribbling down notes as the man talked. He went on for a bit, talking about the other foreign names that were graven into the marble of the memorial, discussing where they came from and what little information he could speak of about the places they worked in. Occasionally he would single out a name and give a small biography about the person, all of those names were from the Japan branch of NERV.  
  
"What about the three in the middle? In that big space?"  
  
The man shrugged again and wiped his hands along his overalls. "That space is reserved for the five pilots of those Evangelions. The first two died some time ago." He tapped the second man's name, "This one died fifteen years back, a car accident if I remember correctly. This other guy died in 2016. The girl...is a mystery to everyone. I...uh," he glanced around and leaned close to Aikiko, "I did a search for some information on this girl, and I can't find a single scrap of papers that connect her to a living, breathing person. No dentals, birth records, National Identification Number, nothing. But, on the list of names we got, she was the very top one."  
  
"But you can't find anything about her?"  
  
The man shook his head and picked up his chisel again. "Look, I've kinda said more about this than I really should have. And I really need to get these names carved in before the last period is up. So, if you don't mind..."  
  
"Just one more question, please?" The man nodded, "Have you ever found flowers on the pedestal here?"  
  
"Flowers?" he thought for a moment. "Sure. White roses. Rare. A guy, old guy, leaves them in here all the time." She asked if he knew who he was, and he said no, but Aikiko noticed a hidden wince in the corner of his eye that made her think differently. But the man would clearly say no more, so she would have to find out on her own.  
  
  
  
~~~~  
  
Aikiko sighed and leaned back in her desk chair. "Nothing." She threw her pencil across the desk and snerkked in amusement as it bounced up to hit the screen of her computer. Aikiko stood up and stretched, knocking back her chair across the room and beside her bed.  
  
"What's wrong?" her roommate, Ijia asked.  
  
"I can't find anything on the ether for my History paper but the same useless drivel, over and over and over again. It's almost like my topic never existed at all!" Her roommate casually sympathized with her, making some random comment about an old paper that was much the similar in its difficulties. But she didn't really understand, or sympathize with Aikiko. She was more, in fact, glad that it was not her paper to write.   
  
Ijia was a political science major, an odd choice for a student, even odder for a woman. But Ijia Yusukami was a woman with a plan and a mind to see it achieved. She wanted to be an active participant in the politics of the nation, even if it was on the barest local levels. Every night her dreams were filled by grand speeches given by her to the Tokyo-2 Diet. And every night, night after night, the Diet rose to applaud her grand and vista-spanning visions for reform and change---then her mind slowly rose from the depths of sleep until she lay there in bed. A perfect state of discontent consciousness. Then she would turn off her unawakened alarm, roll out of her bed and make motions to get to the showers and clean up.  
  
Aikiko noticed this often occurrence only because she was of that rare breed of people who were more awake at night than they were in the day. Some months, Aikiko lay awake for days on end, a mindless routine that saw her sitting in her desk chair, staring out the window at the purplish sky of the East. Ijia would usually mumble something at her, when she awoke and espied her at her chair, but after two years of living together she was quite used to this nocturnal shift of sleep.  
  
Tonight looked like it was going to be one of those times. Aikiko desperately wanted to learn more about her topic, and was not about to stoop to such meaningless scruples like sleep to put a halt on this raging thirst. But all of her online and historical books were utterly spent for the search of her information, now, there was only one option left open to her. Professor's book.  
  
She lifted the text from her bag slowly, not wanting Ijia to take notice of the censored text at all. There really was no telling what her friend would do if she saw the book and learned that it had been pulled off-print by the government. Perhaps she would snitch and then leave Aikiko stumbling in the dark, groping for an explanation on how she happened to have, in her possession, a book that was banned barely a half-month after its publication. The other hand held this: Ijia wouldn't say a thing, and Aikiko would be fine.  
  
But this one-or-another options thing wasn't working for her.  
  
The book was grey, with a black square set on the front cover that held a maple-leaf, in red, surrounded by a red circle that touched the tip and stem of the leaf. The title was written in small letters underneath, red, and went as such: ...ALL'S RIGHT IN THE WORLD.  
  
Aikiko opened the page and read the biography info, found nothing particularly exciting, so went on to the prologue. It went something a little like this:  
  
I was only a small boy when my father left me, my mother was dead and I was shipped off to my Aunt and Uncle. When I was fourteen, my father sent for me---and I went...  
  
~~~~  
  
Aikiko was almost to the end of the book, and the reddened bags underneath her eyes told solid testament to how much she had devoted herself to the completion of the text. Four days she had gone without sleep, not her longest stretch, but still more than should be healthy. Her attention in classes was shattered, her notes were an almost illegible mess. Aikiko had failed her calculus examination yesterday, and looked forward to getting a failure for a quiz she had just taken in her Literature course.  
  
None of that bothered her. Not a bit of it mattered. What mattered was the book, and the fascinating and horrifying story which it imparted. Secrets, fables, names, places, events, it wasn't any small wonder that the book was banned by the government.   
  
"-We must FIGHT! Against the expansion of India. FIGHT! I say. What about you? Will you answer the call of your government to defend that which is now our-"  
  
The open door swung shut, blocking out the sound of the warmongerer who railed and railed and railed outside, everyday at anytime, against the expansion of the once-pacifistic India. They had been at it more fervently as of late, Aikiko didn't usually keep up with the news, but even she had a hard time not realizing that the Indian armies were drawing closer and closer to the borders of Manchuria.  
  
Aikiko set aside the book for a moment, her sandy eyes burning like little grains of fire into her mind. She rubbed hard at her watery oculars, forcing herself to keep going, to stay alive and awake. She only had a little more than two weeks to write up her paper, and things weren't going exceedingly well for her. The book was just about her only source of information for the paper, the rest of what she could find was only a simple historical gloss, a footnote of history in a book. The ethernet wasn't much use for her either, as it only regurgitated old information or simple didn't have any information at all. Newspapers were just as useless, most of the old copies were gone or destroyed by the Government. Everything about NERV had been hushed up and kept silent, and only the walls of the hall in the History building told her anything more.  
  
They were pretty damn quiet too, come to think of it.  
  
But she had one last hope, a single ace left to trump. Now, if only the man would arrive, she could play it and finally, hopefully, at last receive some factual information to compare against the fictionalized truth of the book she had. Six days gone, and he hadn't shown up yet. But she felt something today, something about today---he would show up today.  
  
"-The Emperor has called for a rise of the peoples! We must answer his call and take arms up against the expansionistic Indian Empire! We must heed his words, and FIGHT against these brutal armies bearing down upon our-"  
  
The door closed again, and distantly, Aikiko heard the shuffle-shuffle-click step of the person who just walked in. It was a very quiet step, a tentative and shy step. But it came closer all the same, heading for the large wall of names with a determination. Aikiko gathered her things together and closed the clasps on her bag. She peered around the corner wall at which her bench was set too and spied the old man she'd seen a week before slowly making his way towards the bare pedestal with a single white rose in his hand.  
  
He gently came to a stop by the pedestal and lingered there for a moment, the rose still clenched in his fingers and his lips softly moving in a silent prayer. When he finished, the old man set down the rose and stepped away. He stared at the open space of the monument for a moment, then came back forward to the framed block and gently reached out to touch it with his frail hands. Aikiko walked around the corner, Professor's book pulled up tightly to her side in her right arm, and waited at a distance until the man lowered his hand.  
  
She felt some unknown pity tug at her when she saw the man reach into a pocket for a handkerchief to rub his eyes with. 'He looks sad. Is he going to be one of the people on the wall?' He had to be. Why else would he come here to lay roses? Unless he knew these people---but how else would one know them if they themselves were not going to be here?  
  
Aikiko stepped forward and gently said, "Excuse me, am I bothering you?"  
  
The man started, held a hand to his heart and wiped at his eyes with the handkerchief. "N-no...excuse me. I'm getting a little sentimental in my old age." The man coughed into his hand and slipped the handkerchief hastily into his pocket. "You must excuse me, Miss. I have to be going."  
  
The man started away from the monument, easing to the side of the hall so that he would brush by Aikiko's left shoulder, but she cut him off by stepping into his path. "Are you...are you someone who served in NERV?"  
  
The man staggered to a halt and stared at her with wide eyes. Those eyes held her own for a moment, then dropped down for an instant. Aikiko frowned, but the man snapped his eyes back up instantly and said, "You shouldn't have such a dangerous book like that, young Miss. And you shouldn't be asking such dangerous questions to an old man like me."  
  
He started forward again, pushing around to Aikiko's right and furiously gimping his way down the hall for the doors. Aikiko stumbled around to his rear left and asked another question, "But aren't you? That's why you come here and leave those roses? Right? Well? Hello? Sir?"  
  
"Young people are getting ruder and ruder with each passing year," his retort shut Aikiko up smartly. "You should show more respect and politeness to your elders youngling. I've shown in my years of respect to my elders, you could do at least the polite dignity and show us some respect as well."  
  
Aikiko sighed quickly, then breathed in and asked another question, "Then can I at least have your name? Please, sir?"  
  
The man continued on and out through the doors. They swung back and bounced against the wall. Aikiko halted for a second, watched the man push through the crowds that surrounded the militaristic speaker, then she shrugged up her pack and darted in after him.  
  
"Hey...Hey!" Aikiko shouldered her way through the enraptured crowd with a single-minded force. People shouted and cursed her as she hastily ran through the tightly-packed mob, but she never heard a single coherent word they said. Finally the crowd thinned out and she came to the far edges. She searched for her man but didn't see a single hair of him.  
  
Until he brushed out of the crowd behind her and bumped unseeingly into her pack. Aikiko fell forward helplessly, her arms swinging wildly as her sense of equilibrium vanished like a fog in the morning sun. She heard the man utter a low, foul obscenity just before she hit the ground. The book went sprawling out from her arms and she landed heavily on her knees and hands and elbows.  
  
"Ow, ow, ow," she mumbled sandily, slowly coming up off the ground and searching for her book. She found it resting in the hands of the man she was chasing after, and, surprisingly, he was holding it as though it were a Faberge egg. He caressed the cover as she was getting to her feet, and carefully leafed through the first few pages as she dusted herself off.  
  
Aikiko, now as well as could be, walked up and extended her hand for the book. The man stopped his browsing and eyed her warily. "Why are you chasing after me?"  
  
She quirked her eyes, "I'm doing it now because you have my book."  
  
The man waited a moment, smiled, then handed the thin tome over to her. "And before? If you've got that book, you should know that no one can say anything about NERV. Even fictions are taken up and destroyed by the Government."  
  
Aikiko sighed and shifted her pack around to put the book away, "I followed you because I'm writing a paper...and because I saw you a week ago putting flowers out at the memorial." She winced, the rough gouges in her hands reddened and dripped life.  
  
The man was not unsympathetic to Aikiko's pain, but seemingly turned callously away and began walking. Aikiko hesitated a moment, not sure if she should chase after him again or go wash out the blood from her hands, but that didn't matter. After a few solitary steps, the man looked back and nodded for her to come along. Aikiko followed quickly.  
  
He took her to a water fountain that lay along the paths between the History and Foreign buildings, and told her to wash out her hands. He gave her his handkerchief when she was done to keep the blood to a minimal, then walked a little further on to a bench underneath a ponderous willow tree.  
  
He shakily sat down and nocked his cane against the seat of the bench. Aikiko sat further along towards the edge and waited for him to say something. He did it after a minute or so of silence, "You want to know about NERV...you want to learn why it was such a non-kept secret that was immediately hushed-up after 2016. Is that about it?"  
  
"More or less," Aikiko took out a pen and some paper. "What I want to really know is the truth of what happened, and why the Government kept it so quiet after it was all done."  
  
"The truth...my wife, she wanted to know the truth. I never told her about it though. It is too much to ask, for that truth, Miss..? Matsuski, Aikiko? Hmn. The truth about all of this is in that book you have. But even that isn't the full truth. No one but two of us know everything that happened; and those two are still too many who do fully understand it all. When we die, everything will be right with the world and none of it will ever be able to happen again."  
  
"What won't happen again?"  
  
The man sighed, "I can't tell you, Miss Matsuski. I swore, I swore, three times I swore never to say a single word about what I really know. That book is a result of my oaths. I wrote the story, I knew that I would have to try and write it at least, but I didn't tell them everything."  
  
"You...you wrote this book?"  
  
"I did."  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
The man was really quiet for a long stretch of time. He was quiet for so long that Aikiko wondered if he had fallen asleep during the silent pause. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but he made a motion that said 'No'. Then he spoke, "My name...it is such a trivial thing. You know, some people believe that names of children are presuppositions? When you name a child, you are unconsciously setting out their destiny, their life. My first name...I was supposed to be the focus, the one person to hold it all together. I was a failure for that one, but my second---at the end I became the epitome of anger, hatred, and furious rage. I was a burning flame that reached out and kindled the world into a blaze of fire." He stopped for a second to watch a small flash of brown dart from tree-limb to tree-limb. "Many people would try to kill me, you know. If they knew I was alive. It's happened three times before, though that was all before I married. I'm...I'll tell you my name, but you can never repeat it to anyone until you know for certain that I am dead and gone. Do you understand? Good. I am Shinji Ikari, the third pilot of the Evangelion program for the NERV organization. My father was the head of NERV, my mother was his second. I came to Tokyo-3 in 2015 to do his little dirty work, and I left it in ruins in 2016. That's who I am, Aikiko Matsuski, and damn it all..."  
  
The elderly man who was Shinji Ikari, the greatest pilot of the worst weapon mankind ever made, reached into a second pocket and drew out a second handkerchief to dab at his eyes with. He was very close to falling into a teary mess, and breathed shakily as he rubbed monotonously along his lips. He mumbled something that Aikiko didn't catch, then lowered his hands.  
  
"That's who I am...a great monster of a man." He nodded his head and slowly regained an appearance of himself. "You...have questions. Things to be answered. Now is the best time to ask them."  
  
In the backdrop, the roars of the gathering outside the History building echoed throughout the park and rushed past the bench that Aikiko and Shinji sat on together, one asking about the past, the other answering. Gentle wisps of wind made the willow leaves dance in the sonorous heat of the day.  
  
~~~~  
  
"All right, the grades are done and your papers are in their boxes. I'm done for the day, so, everyone---out." The students smiled at Professor's half-joke and collected all their gear to go. It had been a short session today, just a brief in-and-out so that Professor could take role and then give them a few head-ups on what they would be doing the next week. As the students filed out, Professor called out to Aikiko and asked her to see him for a moment.  
  
A few of the guys made some snide comments, which their friends or their girlfriends promptly hushed up by either making comments of their own, or by smacking the commentors up the head. Aikiko smiled a bit, felt a slight burn in her cheeks go down, and stepped up to the main desk. In his hands she saw her paper, which dripped red from stem to stern.  
  
He noticed her anxious wince and smiled. "Don't worry about this, you did fairly well on the paper. I just wanted to talk to you about this one source you have here at the end. This anonymous. You cited him for most of the work, and though I would reasonably be skeptical for this, the source information is surprisingly accurate. So, I was wondering, who did you talk with to get this?"  
  
Aikiko smiled again and shook her head. "I can't say, Professor. Don't you know? If they knew he was alive they would try to kill him." She reached into her pack and retrieved the book that had been loaned to her and passed it back to the owner. "Thank you for lending me the book. It was a great help for the paper."  
  
"I noticed," Professor smiled and quickly put away his book into his own satchel. "How are your grades coming along, Aikiko?"  
  
"Sir?"  
  
He turned to her with dead-set eyes, "Don't you know? The war in Manchuria is going badly for us. The Diet is considering the Emperor's proposition that they institute a draft. It's going to snap up pretty much everybody around here on campus...but they belatedly added an amendment that would let certain persons with high grades pass over from being taken. Your grades...they're doing fine, neh?"  
  
They weren't doing fine, actually. The failing grades she had received in the past three weeks put her into a very tight bind in the other classes. She had a scanty hope that her finals would punch her totals up to at least a high 'C', but if she didn't bust ass in her studies, she wasn't going to make it. Professor must have seen her eyes widen, because he suddenly closed up and shut down.  
  
"I'm sorry...perhaps it won't be too bad. You'll probably get assigned to some non-combat detail in Japan before they ever ship you to the front in Manchuria. Besides, it can't be as bad as they say it is. You know how reports go when there's a war on. Everything is fucked up and the media tends to exaggerate everything." He smiled wanly at her, "Do try, hmn? You can probably pull it up if you talk to the teachers. They know how it goes for these kinds of things." He hesitated, searched for something more meaningful to say, but it was gone. He grabbed his bag and hastily left the room and Aikiko behind.  
  
Later that afternoon, Aikiko was at her desk staring off into space while her right hand fondled a small slip of paper with a few numbers jotted down upon it. After ten minutes of space, Aikiko returned to reality and looked at the paper she held. Two more minutes and the phone was in her hand, ringing away at the number. Six Weeks ago, when she had confronted and finally received her aid from Shinji Ikari, he had relented in giving her a number to contact her at in case she needed something else to ask him. She called it now, not entirely sure why she was, but as the long rings of an electronic falsity rang in her ears she knew that it was to thank him.  
  
Five, six, seven times the phone rang. Ten, eleven, twelve, still no answer. Aikiko let it ring to twenty, then set the phone back onto the cradle. She would just have to hold the thanks. Perhaps tomorrow she would call him back and thank him...perhaps tomorrow.  
  
She wouldn't call tomorrow.  
  
~~~~  
  
Three months later, Shinji Ikari walked hesitantly down the long, winding course of his drive and stood beside his mailbox. In over fifteen years, only a few letters had ever meandered their way out the long distance from civilization to reach his door. Most were letters of regret and mourning, the last that was of any importance had been a letter from Hikari, asking if he could attend her husband's funeral. Well, no...that wasn't true. Five years after receiving that letter he had received another letter, much the same as the first, written by one of Hikari's children. It asked him to come to a second funeral.  
  
After that, Shinji stopped going to funerals. The notifications would arrive, and he would read them with a grave sincerity, then with that same gravity of tight emotions he would write back his regrets, but no, he would not be able to attend. He was looking for a particular invitation to come to his door, but it had yet to arrive. That was one solace for him.  
  
But today, today Shinji spied the mailcar creep up the steep mountain road and halt ever so briefly at his drive. So he made his way down the perilous slope and now waited at his mailbox, hesitating at the idea that today might finally see the day that he finally received that dreaded small news, the cold letter with black words that was so familiarly impersonal in this new era of life.  
  
Shinji opened the box and withdrew a small packet of letters that were all bound together with catgut rope. He grunted at the large, dense grouping of letters, then peered back in for the second notification which he spotted near the back. It was an impersonal telegram, yellow, with no return address except for a small logo of a lily. Shinji recognized it at once, it was the sigil of the government agency in charge of death notifications.   
  
He held the telegram in one hand, the packet in the other, and hesitated again. After a moment he bent his head down to see who it was that wrote him. The letter brought a faint smile to his lips, it was from Aikiko Matsuski, the girl who had so brashly asked him about so dangerous a memory. He turned the packet of letters over in his hand, leafed through a few of them to check the dates. The earliest was from about a month ago. The latest was dated two days back. Shinji checked the postmark on the telegram; it too was marked two days ago.  
  
Shinji felt a clench of cold dread creep into his heart at the dating, and let it sit there, festering as he clambered back up the hill to his home in the mountains. The clouds were greying over, it would be raining in a few hours. That was fine for him though, Shinji loved the rain. He loved living in the mountains, loved listening to the cool rain wash down from the sky to cleanse the land below. Loved smelling the grass after a storm.  
  
Back at his small house near the brow of this low mountain his wife waited for him, her hands filled with something to occupy her time and her eyes set in a lovely squint that reached out to bore into the gathering clouds overhead.  
  
"It's going to rain honey," she said.  
  
Shinji grunted, stepped up onto the covered porch and sat down heavily in his favorite deck chair. His wife, Mana, sat down next to him and together they admired the view. Their seclusion from the rest of the world started about four years ago, just about when their daughter Rei went off to college. She had graduated with top honors, and now worked at a prosperous business. She dropped in frequently to pay her parents a courteous hello, but those visits were cycling down as the war in Manchuria heated up more and more. Shinji knew why that was, it was all the fault of the draft. His daughter was a prime candidate for draft boards, and so had to maintain as much an importance as she could within her profession to avoid the clutch of the Imperial Army.  
  
The rains started up, lightly at first, then scaling up to a torrential downpour. Mana went inside to brew him a cup of tea, always the mind-reader. When they met, just after Shinji's discharge from a mental institution, he was a wandering fool with no home, no hope, and no prospects for anything.   
  
They met for the first time at a bar.  
  
Two years later his stipend back-pay from his service with NERV and the JSSDF kicked in. He never knew it at the time, but he held a retroactive First Lieutenant's rank when he first joined the Evangelion program, and that rank slowly escalated as time wore on. His pay all those years ago made him something close to being a millionaire, what with the extreme combat pay---now he received monthly stipends from the Government as well as the Army, a sort of hush-hush after the mess he made with his book. His standing rank was that of a senior Colonel in the Imperial Army, though it was only a reserve position and it had absolutely no clout at all when it came to military matters. Not many people would recognize his name if he told them, and that held true for most military files as well. Only a few of the highest-ranking Army officials who were raised in Tokyo-3 during the NERV Era would recognize it now, and then they would fervently deny it.  
  
Mana came back out onto the porch with the tea, her face was older than when he had first seen it, but it brought back so many memories. Even the fading deep red of her hair that he saw every morning and every evening in the bed nagged his mind with memories. He ignored most of them.  
  
"Who are all those letters from?"  
  
Shinji shrugged, "This college girl who hounded after me one day when I went to visit the memorial. She was doing a paper on NERV, figured out generally who I was. I don't know how she got our address though. It isn't listed, and I never gave it to her."  
  
"Did you give her our number?"  
  
"...yeah?"  
  
Mana sipped her tea and set it aside on the arm of her own chair. "I've heard tell that the military keeps up with all the addresses and their phone numbers, even the secret ones. It wouldn't be too hard to find that out...if you were drafted. She probably bullied one of her friends into doing a favor for her." Mana's brow scrunched down as she imagined what kind of 'favor' her friend would have asked of a young college girl, but she said nothing to her husband. She didn't want him to get flustered about that kind of thing. He was very, very old-fashioned.  
  
"Hmn." Shinji untied the loose catgut rope that held the packet together and picked up the first letter. It was dated only a month ago. Sliding his finger into the corner, he inexpertly ripped the flap in half and removed the letter. Steeling himself for a long period of reading, he removed his glasses and placed them on his ponderous nose.  
  
Mana went inside to bring out the pot of tea.  
  
~~~~  
  
Aikiko had just graduated from her boot training, and was glad that the first hell of her life had finally come to a complete end. Like many of the other files around her who marched into the massive F-002A transport/fighter, she was a product of the Bootbase #2201d, which was positioned on a secluded mountainside near Kyoto. The draft had caught her up shortly after her term in college was over, her grades had not been sufficient enough to warrant her exemption from the lists, and damn all her previously-shown aptitude scores that were a mandatory of all college entrance applications.  
  
When she received her official notification of her being drafted, she felt a kind of numbness spread out from her hands. Like the letter itself was made of a fibrous poison that dulled the senses as it sent you reeling towards your death. Her roommate, that unimaginable girl she is, was so excited and hopped-up with joy for Aikiko. She heard endless commentary all night long about how lucky Aikiko was, going to serve the greater good of Japan by combating the evils of Expansionist India.  
  
Aikiko could only smile and nod at her roommate. In the morning she packed up what the list told her to bring, notified some nearby relatives to come and collect her remaining possessions from her dorm, and went to one of the local draftee pickup stations.  
  
Two months of training hell followed, and left her a weary mess that was in the peak of its physical performance. Mentally, though, she was sure that at least three of the kilos in weight she'd lost was portions of her brain matter. The beating they sent new recruits, and especially draftees through was enough to wonder if the UN would cite "Crimes Against Humanity" upon Japan's military. All in all though, she sweated it out with the rest of her #2201d flunkies and they were finally given the coveted Imperial Chrysanthemum, a small little trinket that they would only ever wear on their most highly formal occasions, may those be few and far in-between.  
  
Now they were aboard their windy, cold, and acutely uncomfortable transportation and rocketing away from the landing fields towards far-off Manchuria. Around her there were signs of numbed life, men trading cigarettes, women making small comments about the disgusting habits of their fellows, both laughing in red-cheeked joy at some lewd joke one or another told over the roar and rumble of the jet and wind. Aikiko noticed that one fellow had a silver flask hidden in his hand and that he would take small sips from it as the minutes passed. Alcohol was illegal for boots, but of course, many people managed to find a way to sneak some in. Eventually he noticed her, and extended the flask for her.  
  
Aikiko took it, not exactly sure what to do. The man smiled and tipped his pantomime hand back at a gentle angle. Aikiko did as he said and felt a rush of fire slam into the back of her throat. She coughed hard, small flecks of the potent whiskey flying out of her parted lips, and handed the flask back to the man. He was smirking at her inexperience, and proved it by taking the flask and sloshing down a long guzzle of the acidic brew. Aikiko finally reigned her body in and noticed for the first time that a warm feeling was nuzzling inside her stomach, then slowly spreading outwards from her chest into her limbs. The airship began to fuzz out in her sights, and everything became distant.  
  
Aikiko woke up later to the insistent prods of her legmate, the file that was assigned in the seat next to her. They were here, where ever that was. The bottom dropped out on the embarkation ramps, and the trainees of Bootbase #2201d marched off with their kits. They stepped out into a personification of hell.  
  
"Okay cheesedicks, fall in and follow me!"  
  
At the orders of their receiving NCO, the files lined up into a nice, pretty square and then peeled off into a double-column to follow behind the woman who snapped them straight into attention. Many of the air cadre around their aircraft whistled and catcalled to the new files, shouting out suggestions and comments that were lost in the windy rain that pelted down from the north. Aikiko glanced around quickly, noticing everything she could about her new home.  
  
The men and women around her were far from what her DIs at Boot would have called fighting material, their ODs were soiled and slick with rain and mud, their boots were so caked with the mucus of the earth that one could only imagine that at some point in their lives they had once been black. What little bits of armor they cared to wear was the single ceramic breastplate that covered the torso and upper hips. Aikiko herself, as well as the files around her, wore the complete body armor issued to them their first week in Boot. Ceramic breast and back plates, single-form spaulders to protect their shoulders, bracers with thick leather gloves, greaves, and a helmet to cover the cap. Apart from that, they each carried a pack of equipment (mostly food and ammunition), their weapons, and any other assorted nick-knacks that they had accumulated along the way.  
  
A roar overhead made everyone wince and duck, well, everyone but the combat-files. It was the up-close and personal sound of a war-kit F-002A guttering by over the landing field. Aikiko could see dozens of close-cluster napalm incendiaries hanging perilously underneath the flight wings. Two men hanging out of square-cut holes in the transport bay were strapped down to a pair of seats that were positioned right before a pair of high-speed gas-carbine machine guns. The gunship kicked in the primary thrust and roared away to the northwest.  
  
"All right cheesedicks, get on your feet. I don't have time for your grousing." The files stood hastily under the NCO's eye and reassembled into a somewhat tense column of march. Their guide snorted and mumbled something Aikiko couldn't hear, then waved for them to follow. She lead them to the edge of the landing field and into a deep cut that ran from the field straight down one-thousand meters into a wide valley.  
  
Aikiko felt her breath sucked away as she realized how high up they really were, heights didn't trouble her too much, but they still were unnerving on occasion. Especially when they happened to be marching for a field of battle that happened to be in plain sight. The valley leveled off into a long plain that was flanked on two sides by massive walls of crumbling rock and slick, slimy mud. The trench cut they were just entering eventually joined with other deep cuts carved into the mountain side, each eventually joining up with others that snaked their way down towards the plain. Small artificial ledges sprouted all along the sides of the mountain Aikiko was traversing along, each ledge housing some camouflaged command structure or a battery of 105mm Howitzers that opened up just as the files noticed them. Two miles away, the files could see gouts of black-brown mud and rock fly up and out. The plain was filled with such holes, and not much else. A few trees lingered, stubbornly clung to the blood-soaked soil, but most of those were gashed with great white scars from the continuous fire from one side or the other. Many of the files ahead of her stumbled and staggered down the treacherous trench when they saw the place that they had so often been lectured upon by the DIs in Boot. Aikiko was no exception to this, twice she slipped and slid down the trench until caught and hefted back on her feet by one of the more alert files.  
  
"Come on! Come on! Stop gawking and get your shit together! If one of you thinks about getting a Form 83 by tripping and breaking a leg, then FORGET IT! You'll stay at the corpstation until you heal, and then we'll send you back in!"  
  
The files tightened up after that, not wanting to bring any further instances of wrath upon themselves from their temp-NCO. And, though she said that if they broke a leg they would stay here anyway, many of the new soldiers frighteningly considered the painful thought of "accidentally" shooting off a few fingers or toes to get a File 83, a medical discharge and a free ticket home. Almost everyone in the company knew how to go about it, knew where they would have to aim the round and what fingers they would have to blow off to get the discharge, everyone learned that from their hellish experiences in Boot. No one then considered even balling-up to do something as debilitating as that to themselves---then. Now, now the thought was very present and very demandingly attractive.  
  
Aikiko flicked her head, dashing away some of the persistent droplets of water that clung to her helmet. Something sounded odd to her, just at the corner of her ears (which were already ringing from the 105s banging away like tin drums to her left and right). She thought it sounded a bit like a train whistle, one of the old whistles. Then it wasn't a pure figment anymore, it sounded off louder and louder in her mind. The NCO looked up, her face a picturesque mask of horror.  
  
"DOWN DOWN! EVERYBODY DOWN!"  
  
Some of the files, the sharper ones, obeyed the NCO without question and dove head-first into the soggy sidewalls or into the deep muck of the trench floor. Most of the company didn't listen though. The enemy's 105 shells landed with the furious noise of a thunderstorm about the trench. Muck, rock, and blood flew everywhere as high-explosive shells tore into and around the surrounding countryside. The world was fading into a dark grey light, and all the noise around was filled with an electronic hum. When everything faded back into something close to natural, Aikiko felt herself being lifted out of the pile of sogged trench wall that had collapsed in on her. Life and vitality returned, and her first reaction was to cough up the disgustingly copious amount of dirt that found its way in her mouth.  
  
Slowly coming around from her retching gags, she lightly looked around at the world about her. The sky, the rain that fell plip-plip-plip onto her twitchy eyes, the feel and smell of the soil that was leeched of life and overflowing with gunpowder. Her rescuer, the NCO, chuckled at her reaction and said a brief line, "Welcome to Manchuria."  
  
  
  
~~~~  
  
Aikiko finished writing her letter, one of about seventeen now, all addressed to that mysterious man that she met only briefly in a park. She had weaseled an address, never mind how, for the guy, and she thought it fair to write her letters to him instead of her family.  
  
She stopped for a moment at the thought of her family. Her father and mother hadn't taken her submissive acceptance of the draft notification well. They also didn't take her failing two classes in college well. It was understandable, sure, but it was still depressing. She felt so alone and cut off from the 'real' world here, in Manchuria. The only friends she had were the fellow files to the left and right of her, and they could die in the next second by some random act of a malicious god who happened to arc the next 10-5 shell in their direction. Friends were scarce here, even more so for the new files who just came in from Boot. No one wanted to know the new guys, they would just get in the way, slow up the ones who really knew what was going on. Mess up, trip up, screw up and, if they were lucky, just die. The unlucky ones wound up at the corpstation.  
  
That was a hell that made the trenches look inviting.  
  
Aikiko went there a few days back, she had to. A 10-5 shell landed in the trench line near her and fairly much killed or wounded all the men and women there. Everyone had to lend a hand, everyone had to dig out the bodies and cart off the living and the dead. Aikiko took a live body, which she thought would be better than a dead one. If you caught a corpse, you had to go on burial detail and take him to the Field. It turns out that neither one was the better choice: you went to the Field, you had to dig through layers of skull and bones until you could bury the guy. You went to the corpstation, well---you had to see what might be your fate if you caught a small piece of it.  
  
Amputees, belly shot, skull fractures, broken bones, broken bodies...broken minds. The corpstation was filled to bursting, and then it was filled some more. The dead or dying were taken outside in the off-again, on-again rain that seemed to linger over the valley. There they waited until a free stretcher bearer could cart them off to the Field. The doctors were running on forty-eight shift days, the stench was unbelievable. Before she could leave, Aikiko was asked to take out four cases of DoDy, Dead or Dying. One of them tried to stop her from taking him outside, kept jumping around in his stretcher until one of the doctors finally gave in and came over to the man with a lethal dose of morphine.   
  
The man had only one limb, his left arm, and it was missing most of the forearm.  
  
Aikiko made it wearily back to her trench then, her rifle bouncing unnoticed on her flank and her head dangerously poking up through the random shallow dips of the trenches on odd occasions. While she was walking back, she came across a side-cut trench that had suffered a similar fate as her own. She hustled by before anyone could order her to lend a leg.  
  
She'd been here for over half a month now, and in that time the only thing she had done was fire some random shot over the heads of the Indians and write her letters to Shinji Ikari. Once she started a letter, then stopped, wondered, 'Why the hell am I writing to this guy? He doesn't know me, I don't know him. So why the hell am I writing to him?' She threw the letter away. Two days later she picked up a fresh piece of paper and started writing to him again. When she had about twenty or so letters she would send it off. It was easier for the army to send off mail from the trenches in bulk. Saves space on the gunships.   
  
The gunships were up at all hours. Flying this way or that, engaging with an enemy that Aikiko never heard and never saw. Sometimes a rocket would slash out from some hidden embankment deep within the Indian trenches on the opposite side, or maybe there would be a slight flash and then a delayed boom of a 10-5 taking a potshot at the gunships. Most times they missed, but every so often there would be a morbidly fantastic explosion as the gunship caught the full hit and detonated in a showering display of purple and white fire.  
  
Once, only once, Aikiko watched a squadron of gunships rise up from behind her and rocket away towards the trenches across from her. Two minutes later a curtain of liquid fire rose from the enemy's trench lines, then another and another and another. Napalm, fourteen canisters of napalm were dropped that day. Aikiko watched with dread wonder as bodies sheeted in flames rose from the hell of their shelters and danced about the muddy plain, striving to live and extinguish the horrific blaze. She even remembered the shouted command that echoed down the trench that day.  
  
"Don't shoot! Let the fuckers burn!"  
  
Three days ago, Aikiko was pushed out of her mostly dry dugout underneath the trench wall and told to get to her firing step. She did it without much question, readied her rifle like everyone else, and waited. Two hours later, most of the soldiers were back down into the trench proper, playing cards for cigarettes or trading flasks of whiskey around like so much idle banter. That's when they all heard the sonic whistle go off. Seconds went by as the soldiers rushed helter-skelter back to their firing steps, hundreds of 10-5s went off from both their side and their foe's. The trenches erupted into flame, mud, and bodies; but most of the rounds landed behind them or before them. Somewhere to the north of her, Aikiko could hear the cry of "GAS! GAS!", but the wind was coming from the south, the billowing fog of sulfurous yellow wouldn't touch her unless the wind shifted.  
  
Then a second cry roared out across the plain. To her astonishment, Aikiko spotted a great wave of men and women leap out of their protective trenches and start to rush forward through the sluggish earth of the despoiled plain. She could see the flapping straps bounce against thin armor, could see their foggy breath stream out into the cold of the air, could see the glint of their bayonets fixed upon their emptied rifles. Then the command came, not a spoken word, but a sensation.  
  
Fire!  
  
Not a single Indian soldier made it further than one hundred meters, just over one-third the distance of the separated trenches. Over four thousand men and women were now just so many dead corpses laying upon or in the thick mud of the ground. Aikiko slipped, fell from her firing step. 'Gods it was barbaric! It was...was...' the words could not come to her. Even when she wrote of it to Mr. Ikari later that night, she could not describe the horrible feeling that swept across her. She couldn't even remember, never even considered---did she kill one of those foolish brave? Did one of her wild shot hit those charging madmen? The thought sickened her. She couldn't eat for many days after that.  
  
~~~~  
  
"Yeap."  
  
"Ow!"  
  
"Yeap, you've caught it now all right. Trenchfoot. You better hump up to the corpstation and have it checked out. If it gets infected then you can pretty much kiss your leg goodbye kid." The Sergeant spit out a wad of chewed tobacco, then let his file's foot drop back down to his empty boot. "Damnit Tsuriko, I thought you knew better."  
  
"Sorry Sergeant," Tsuriko looked sheepish, "I only thought it was wrinkled from the water getting into my boot. I didn't think it was trenchfoot getting to me."  
  
"It'll be okay, just hump up to the corpstation and get fixed up, hey? I can't spare a man, all right? So you hump up there, get fixed, and hump back. I don't want to find out that some sleepy-assed doc decided to keep you overnight for something that might not be serious, hey?"  
  
"Right Sergeant."  
  
"Good. Hump on up there now, shove that off."  
  
Aikiko rolled her own feet around in their boots, fingered her rifle, and fiddled with the open letter in her hands. It was from Ijia, she had just signed up in the Imperial Army. She was going through Boot. She was going to come here. Aikiko felt pity for her. Ijia loved her country, no doubt for that, but she didn't know how it really was here. Didn't know that it was wet, cold, and dirty every living moment of the day. That the sun rarely came out and if it did that meant that the 10-5s would open up with a heavier than normal barrage. They could see better when the sun came out, y'know?   
  
Ijia didn't know how it was. But she was coming. In a month she would be here fighting nearby, maybe even in the same trenches. But a month was still a long ways off. Things could happen in a month.   
  
"Hey, Aikiko!" She looked up to see a slow canteen fly for her face. She caught the canteen carefully and stowed it beside her seat. One of her buddy-files walked up behind the arc of the water-tin and sat down beside her. "You hear the meat?"  
  
"What's coming down?"  
  
"Well," he took a swig and swished it around in his mouth before spitting it out. "Repple is that the general wants to see if we can make any headway across this field. He's all up in a sudden itch because of some report he got from some rival of his pushing back the Indians. Now he wants to get in on some of the glory, and since he figures that this place is fairly unimportant..."   
  
Aikiko frowned, "You mean he's going to send us across that field?"  
  
He shrugged, "That's what the fat is. Colonel's raising hell against the plan, but there's only so much he can delay before the general decides to be picky about it. We shouldn't have too much to worry about though, supposed to be a great big artillery hullabaloo and some gunship strikes before we pop out from our safe, soggy holes. It'll probably be fine, y'know? We route these bastards and get shipped off somewhere less wet and cold." He kicked at the floor of the trench, splashing up a great clod of muck and twigs.  
  
"Maybe..." Aikiko had her doubts about that. All she could remember was that day so many weeks ago when the enemy charged out at her. The bodies flying around as round after round of rifle and machine gun fire ripped through their pretty formation. "...maybe."  
  
The sun was setting over the valley. The night was clear for once, and the beautiful colours of the setting light was enough for the soldiers on both sides to stay their fire and sit back to enjoy the wonderful lights. A restful feeling descended upon all of the men and women in the trenches, and they sat back to enjoy a few swigs of brandy or a cigarette. Some sang songs, some fooled around, a few wrote letters.  
  
Aikiko finished off a letter and folded it up into its envelope. 'Tomorrow,' she promised, 'tomorrow I'll send it to him.' She put the packet of letters away and leaned back to get some sleep. She wouldn't keep that promise.  
  
~~~~  
  
Shinji set aside the last letter and lifted up the telegram. He frowned and set it aside, unopened. He already knew what it said, and he already knew that there wasn't going to be any funeral. "Mana, honey, could you get my blanket for me?"  
  
"Sure dear," Mana stood and slipped into the house for Shinji's favorite blanket. It was a ratty thing, just a knitted blanket of grey wool. He should have thrown it out a long time ago, bought a newer one. But he liked the few things that he had left, and he didn't want to throw out something that he'd had for nearly twenty years of his life. It would be like throwing out a piece of himself.  
  
Mana came back and draped it across his shoulders, then she came around to sit gingerly on his lap, one arm wrapped around his neck and the other gently rubbing on his chest. "She didn't make it...did she?" was her soft question.  
  
Shinji was silent for a long time, thinking about how the answer. The rain slackened, stiffened, then settled into the same steady downpour that it had held for many hours before. Shinji sighed, removed his glasses and set them beside the letters on the table next to his teacup.  
  
"No."  
  
~~~~  
  
Author's Notation: This story isn't really supposed to mean anything. There's no real message that I've worked into it, no grand theme behind it all. I just made it because we finished up my English Session with World War One poets from England.   
  
Just wanted to try something different.  
  
Seldon. 


	9. It's been a While: Introduction and Answ...

Well, it's been almost half a year since most people saw any of these, so I thought I'd just refresh them up to the top of the queue and let everyone read them again a bit. Just to see some oldies and whatnot. That and I'm going to answer something for a reviewer. I apologize to the other readers who may read the following statment.  
  
Oh, and to the last guy who reviewed: Todesengel : uh...yeahhhh...who the hell said that Chapter 4 was a romance? You'll notice the "Romance/Angst" underneath the title there? Yeah. Chapter 4 wasn't supposed to be any type of sappy waff fluff that apparently you have been digesting here for months. It was supposed to be brutal, violent, and gut-ripping. I can't imagine where you received this information that Chapter 4 was supposed to be a nice, lovely little romance. It certainly isn't in the chapter credits, and it isn't at the end, nope: not in the middle either. So who's mistake was it to think of Chapter 4 as a romance? YOURS.  
  
You want sap, read Chapter 2. But don't you damn tell me to learn how to write better romance fiction if all you can say to me in your review is "Some of your stories are good. BUT THAT WAS FUCKING DISGUSTING! You should really learn to write better romance stories."  
  
You want to comment on the story and why you did not like it, fine, go ahead. But don't you dare assume that a childish statment like you made in your review (the part about me learning to write better romance fiction, if you can't discern exactly what I am referring to) will make any writer anything BUT pissed off at the sheer amount of jackass you have just made yourself into.  
  
And another thing: you want to say you dislike the chapter the way you did, at least be a MAN about it and either leave an email address or login for a signed review. Because I know that the good number of people who actually do read my work don't need to see my riposte to your idiotic commentry. If you had been an actual MAN with your critique then you would have seen this in a nice, private email.  
  
And if you do so happen to be a woman, which I highly doubt because I believe a woman would never degrade herself so low as to use such childish language which you did in your review, then I'm sorry for calling you a man. But the implication of the term still stands.  
  
Seldon. 


	10. Bump

Well...every so often I like to bump up the stories and see what happens.

Sorry to dissapoint all of those who were hoping for something more, this is just for my own interest.

Oh, and update on other writing: The non-Evangelion version of Eternities Wars has finally been hashed out in my head. After only seventeen first chapters (I'm not kidding, by the way. I wrote seventeen first chapters) I've managed to find the angle I was looking for. Hopefully, within a year or so, I'll have a finished work. Then, with a little luck, it'll be out to print.

Wish me luck, and keep holding on to hope. This story will be finished one day. Maybe not as an Evangelion fiction, but certainly as an original.

IA Seldon. 


End file.
